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THE CAUSE AND EXTENT OF THE RECENT INDUS- 
TRIAL PROGRESS OF GERMANY. By Earl D. Howard. 

THE CAUSES OF THE PANIC OF 1893. By WilUam J. 
Lauck. 

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. By Harlow Stafford Person, 
Ph.D. 

FEDERAL REGULATION OF RAILWAY RATES. By Al- 
bert N. Merritt, Ph.D. 

SHIP SUBSIDIES. An Economic Study of the Policy of Sub- 
sidizing Merchant Marines. By Walter T. Dunmore. 

SOCIALISM: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS. By O. D. Skelton. 

INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS AND THEIR COMPENSATION. 
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THE STANDARD OF LIVING AMONG THE INDUSTRIAL 
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THE NAVIGABLE RHINE. By Edwin J. Clapp. 

HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION OF CRIMINAL STATIS- 
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SOCIAL VALUE. By B. M. Anderson, Jr. 

FREIGHT CLASSIFICATION. By J. F. Strombeck. 

WATERWAYS VERSUS RAILWAYS. By Harold Glenn 
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THE VALUE OF ORGANIZED SPECULATION. By Harri- 
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INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION: ITS PROBLEMS, METHODS 
AND DANGERS. By Albert H. Leake. 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

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XV 

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION: ITS PROBLEMS, 
METHODS, AND DANGERS 



K^ 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

ITS PROBLEMS, METHODS 
AND DANGERS 



BY 



ALBERT H. LEAKE 

INSPECTOR OF TECHNICAI, EDUCATION, 
ONTARIO, CANADA 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 







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COPYRIGHT, I913, BY HART, SCHAFFNER » MARX 
ALL. RIGHTS RSSERVED 



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PREFACE 

This series of books owes its existence to the generosity of 
Messrs. Hart, Schaffner & Marx, of Chicago, who have 
shown a special interest in trying to draw the attention of 
American youth to the study of economic and commercial 
subjects. For this purpose they have delegated to the 
undersigned committee the task of selecting or approving 
of topics, making announcements, and awarding prizes 
annually for those who wish to compete. 

For the year ending June 1, 1912, there were offered: — 

In Class A, which included any American without 
restriction, a first prize of $1000, and a second prize of $500. 

In Class B, which included any who were at the time 
undergraduates of an American college, a first prize of 
$300, and a second prize of $200. 

Any essay submitted in Class B, if deemed of suflScient 
merit, could receive a prize in Class A. 

The present volume, submitted in Class A, was awarded 
the first prize in that class. 

J. Laurence Laughlin, Chairman, 
University of Chicago, 

J. B. Clabe, 

Columbia University, 

Henry C. Adams, 

University of Michigan, 
Horace White, 

New York City, 

Edwin F. Gay, 

Harvard University, 



CONTENTS 

PART I. THE PROBLEMS 

I. mXRODUCTION 

Antiquity of the subject. — 1645, Plans of the Marquis of Worcester. 

— 1676, "How to Outdo the Dutch without Fighting." — 1691, 
Plans of President Leonard Hoar of Cambridge. — Locke's plan 
to counteract the spread of pauperism. — 1796, Pitt's bills to the 
same effect. — Present-day discussions and publications. — Indefi- 
nite idea of terms used. — Time to take stock. — Every man 
considers himself a competent critic of educational affairs. — In- 
dustrial education a popular subject. — Ephemeral character of 
educational propaganda. — Investigations and commissions. — 
Need for definiteness. — Economic losses. — Education not 
democratic. — Various problems on which silence is maintained. 

— The problem of the unskilled worker. — The problem of the 
small town. — Lack of parental influence and guidance. — Popu- 
lar conception of industry shown by the use of the term "indus- 
trial." — Definitions 3 

II. THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 

Ranks of artisans recruited from the elementary schools. — Attend- 
ance at schools. — Compulsion. — Raising the age. — Money 
spent. — Reasons for pupils not entering the high schools. — 
Unfinished product. — "Repeaters" and their cause. — Obstacles 
in the way of dismissing inefficient teachers. — Scarcity of men 
teachers. — Reducing the supply of adolescent labor. — Indus- 
trial education has its roots in the primary schools. — Manual 
training never given a fair chance. — Art and drawing in the 
schools. — Household science. — Evening schools. — Limited use 
of educational equipment. — Three classes of towns to be provided 
for. — Parents' dislike of industrial occupations for their boys. — 
Indifference of the average parent. — Who decides whether a boy 
shall leave school? — Lack of parental authority. — The boy's ideas 
regarding industry. — Reasons for leaving school. — Juvenile 
delinquents. — The drifting of Adolescents. — Decline and revival 
of apprenticeship. — The work of the elementary schools could 
be done in one less year. — Haphazard choice of occupations. — 
Investigations and commissions. — Aims of industrial education. 

— The different phases of the question stated 12 



viii CONTENTS 



PART II. THE METHODS 

III. THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND THEIR 
REVITALIZATION 

Putting the schools on a business basis in order that the greatest 
possible return may be secured from the investment. — Tests to be 
applied. — Reorganization of the course of study with a view of 
giving a direct industrial trend both to the instruction given and 
to the mind of the boy. — School and work are not synonymous 
terms. — All difficulties are carefully removed. — Wheedling the 
child into knowledge. — A race incapable of doing disagreeable 
things. — Time available. — Extension of the school day. — 
Secret of European success. — Industrial method applied to 
various subjects; reading, writing, composition, arithmetic, sci- 
ence, geography, history. — Work outside school. — Changes in 
methods arising out of the revised curriculum. — Handwork. — 
Library. — Trade information. — Continued education and choice 
of trade. — Visits to factories and industrial schools. — Freedom 
to local authorities. — Visual instruction. — Moving pictures. — 
Vital statistics. — Training teachers. — Foundation for voca- 
tional training. — Compulsion 43 



IV. MANUAL TRAINING: ITS SUCCESSES, ITS FAILURES, 

AND ITS REORGANIZATION IN RESPONSE 

TO PRESENT CONDITIONS 

Unsuitability and indefiniteness of the name. — Many kinds of hand 
training. — Manual training high schools. — Exaggerated ideas. 

— Not taken seriously by the people. — Grounds of its advocacy. 

— Manual and industrial training. — Cultural and practical 
value of manual training. — Educational tradition and opposition. 

— Never an integral part of the curriculum. — Unreal and re- 
stricted character of the work. — Development of the manual 
training course of study. — Too much restricted to work in wood. 

— Ability of the teachers employed. — Ontario regulations for 
training teachers. — Claims failed to materialize. — Indifference 
of the grade teachers. — Value of time and material. — Differences 
between school and shop. — Dollars and cents. — A cost check. — 
Cooperative or community work. — Industrial education reacting 
on manual training. — Household science. — Housewifery. — 
More practical methods 59 



CONTENTS ix 

V. SOME NEW TYPES OF SCHOOLS, AND PRINCIPLES 

UNDERLYING THEIR ORGANIZATION 

AND MANAGEMENT 

Modernizing existing types and building on the achievements of the 
past. — A good citizen must be able to earn a living. — "How to 
live" and "How to make a living" intimately related. — Present 
high schools do not meet the needs of eighty per cent of the children 
leaving the elementary schools. — Objections to grading or sorting 
children. — General and special industrial school. — Rochester 
Factory School. — Industrial method of treatment of subjects. — 
Length of school day increased to eight hours. — Taking boys into 
works before conclusion of the course. — Approval of the American 
Federation of Labor of such a school. — Specialization in the third 
year. — These schools not to be regarded as "cities of refuge." — 
Compulsion necessary. — Scholarship and maintenance allow- 
ances of the London County Council. — Disposal of product. — 
The plan followed in the Rochester Factory School and the Newton 
Independent Industrial School. — Cooperation of all interests. — 
Cost. — Obligations of the State. — Amount spent in luxuries. — 
Assistance by Federal Governments. — The public will have these 
schools when they are willing to pay for them 75 



VI. VARIOUS PROBLEMS RELATING TO SUPPLEMEN- 
TARY EDUCATION IN DAY AND EVENING 
CONTINUATION SCHOOLS 

Self-deception in regard to evening schools. — Fascination of num- 
bers. — Attendance. — Defects of evening schools. — Defects can 
be remedied. — Compulsory continuation schools. — The eight- 
hour day. — The student. — Letter sent to pupils on leaving the 
elementary school (Rochdale). — Employers required to report the 
employment of adolescents. — Attitude of employer. — Expert 
guidance as to courses to be taken. — Classification. — Curricu- 
lum. — Method of subject treatment. — Reasons for discontinu- 
ance of attendance. — Lack of elementary knowledge. — Diverse 
conditions to be taken into account. — Demand for subjects that 
cannot be obtained in the shops. — The teacher. — Academic and 
industrial teaching. — The teacher from the shop. — Normal 
schools for training industrial teachers. — Advertising. — Fees. — 
Why only open for six months. — Social as well as educational cen- 
tres. — Small classes. — Individual instruction. — Looking after 
absentees. — Printed notes of lessons. — Textbooks. — The one 
industry town. — Small towns with a large number of industries: 
Montrose. — The large city: Leeds dnd Manchester. — Advisory 



X CONTENTS 

committees. — Two aspects of the education given. — Members 
of trustee boards not educational experts. — Correspondence 
schools: University of Wisconsin, National Typographical Union. 

— Cooperation between small towns. — Traveling schools. — 
Schools for those unemployed during the winter. — Trade and 
industrial museums. — A problem with no single solution . . 93 

VII. APPRENTICESHIP 

Apprenticeship said to be dead. — Only partially true. — Appren- 
ticeship under the guilds. — The revival of guilds in Germany and 
Austria. — Trade unionists should be expert craftsmen. — Func- 
tions of guilds. — Regulations for apprentices. — Fortunate for 
the worker that the old system has passed. — Inadequacy of old 
instruction. — Reasons for its decline: growth of population, 
development of machinery, subdivision of labor, disinclination of 
employers and journeymen to take and teach apprentices. — Dis- 
inclination of boy to be bound. — Length of time required. — Steal- 
ing a trade. — Trades in which apprenticeship cannot be adopted. 

— Skilled labor nearly superfluous. — Instruction for the one- 
process man. — Apprenticeship for the "specialist." — Status of 
the apprentice. — An efficient system of apprenticeship distin- 
guished by careful selection of apprentices, the trade to be the free 
choice of the apprentice, wages paid to be mutually satisfactory, 
adequate instruction given, length of period just sufficient to ac- 
complish the end desired, regular progress through the shop, a 
matter of Government regulation: Germany, Switzerland, Wis- 
consin. — Control of apprentices outside working hours. — Gov- 
ernment aid to approved schools ........ 127 

VIII. VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 

Success of industrial education depends on a wise choice of occupa- 
tion. — Two types of organizations, "Apprenticeship and Skilled 
Employment Associations" and "Vocation Bureaus." — Plan of 
the English organization. — Supervision outside working hours. 

— Inquiry into prospects and conditions of different trades. 
National Conference on Vocational Guidance. — The plan in New 
York high schools. — The system needed in the elementary 
schools. — Organization in Boston. — Specimen of bulletin issued 
on "The Machinist." — Record cards. — Report of Boston School 
Committee. — Present status of the movement . . , . 149 



IX. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 

Education of the parent necessary. -^ Interests of employers in 
industrial education suspected by organized labor. — Age of six- 



CONTENTS xi 

teen for entry into industry questioned. — Choice of a trade should 
be made earlier. — Being too prosperous. — Increased earning 
capacity arising from industrial training: Baron de Hirsch Trade 
School. — School of Printing, Boston. — Mutual duties of em- 
ployer and employee. — Economic losses arising from ineflSciency. 

— More stability required in the boy. — Industrial elasticity. 

— Skilled labor essential 163 



PART III. THE DANGERS 

X. DANGERS ARISING FROM THE MISINTERPRETATION 
OF FOREIGN SYSTEMS, AND OTHER CAUSES 

Elaborate buildings and costly equipment. — Universal use of Ger- 
many as an illustration. — German view of educational systems. 
— Mistakes and misconceptions. — American trade schools and 
German trade schools not the same. — The German State does 
not teach trades. — Schools for apprentices. — Schools for journey- 
men. — Purpose of each. — Specimen courses of study. — Prepara- 
tory courses. — Handwerkerschule not a school where handwork is 
taught. — Apprenticeship system largely the secret of German 
success. — No attempt to teach skill.— German criticisms of their 
own system. — The American is not German 175 

APPENDIX A. Resolutions adopted by the National Asso- 
ciation OP Manufacturers op the United 
States op America, May 21, 1912 . . .193 

APPENDIX B. List op Authorities Consulted .... 196 
INDEX . 199 



PART I 
THE PROBLEMS 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

ITS PROBLEMS, METHODS 
AND DANGERS 



, INTRODUCTION 

No matter how far back we go in educational history and 
literature, it is impossible to find a period when the prob- 
lems of industrial education were not with us. True the 
subject did not always appear under that special name, nor 
did it wear the clothes in which it is garbed to-day, but it 
was there nevertheless. 

In 1645, the Marquis of Worcester, while imprisoned in 
the Tower of London and working on his steam and water 
engines, saw a vacant lot, from the window, and gave in- 
structions to his agent for its purchase, intending, as soon 
as he was set at liberty, "to erect a school wherein boys 
might learn something of the principles of the mechanic 
arts." Unfortunately the opportunity was never given to 
him to put his plans into operation. 

In 1676, there was published in England a book entitled 
"How to Outdo the Dutch without Fighting," by Andrew 
Yarranton. The author says: — 

Inasmuch as we cannot fight on the seas as our boats are inferior 
to those of the Dutch, if we are to exist at all we must sharpen the 
wits of our people. 

He points out that " Mechanics Universities " had existed 
for many years in Germany and Holland, and counsels the 
securing of teachers from those countries. 

Get a good man from Freiburg to put us in the way of making 
tapes, and bring over two engines, one for narrow and one for 



4 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

broad tapes with wheels to spin. Send for one man to Dort in 
Holland to put us in the way of treating the fine threads, and for 
a spinning mistress from Germany to govern the little maids, and 
instruct them in the art of spinning, for a man from Haarlem in 
Holland to whiten your tapes and threads ; and if you do this you will 
become masters of it as Manchester is in all the things it trades in. 

In the same year Chief Justice Hale recommended to 
Parliament the establishment of an industrial school in 
every parish. 

President Leonard Hoar, of Cambridge, in a letter to 
Robert Boyle, who died in 1691, said: — 

I would have a large, well-sheltered garden and orchard for stu- 
dents addicted to planting; an ergasterium for mechanical fan- 
cies, and a laboratory chemical for those philosophers that by 
their senses would cultivate their understanding, for the students 
to spend their times of recreation at them; for reading or notions 
are but husky provender. 

Two centuries afterwards came the Lawrence Scientific 
School of Arts and Sciences in connection with Harvard 
University (1847). 

In 1705, Locke laid before the English Parliament a plan 
to counteract the spread of pauperism by the establish- 
ment of labor schools in each parish. The bill failed, as did 
one to the same effect proposed by Pitt in 1796. 

The wave of discussion which passed over the educa- 
tional world twenty-five or thirty years ago is as applicable 
to-day as it was then, if we substitute the term "industrial 
education" for "manual training." During the past ten 
years particularly, the subject seems to have been discussed 
from all points of view, in the press, on the platform, and 
even in those pulpits which do not usually concern them- 
selves with the things of this world. 

A large number of books have been issued and the 
available literature is constantly growing, but unfortu- 
nately the discussions and publications do not reach those 
to whom they are calculated to be of most benefit. They 
are read and discussed only by students of education, and 



INTRODUCTION 5 

those who are already convinced of the necessity of the 
adoption of some adequate form of industrial training — 
a case very largely of preaching to the converted. 

In this flood of discussion we are in danger of losing 
sight of the possible and the practical and are getting 
perilously close to theories and schemes which if not 
checked and turned will lead to disaster rather than to 
success. 

In spite of the widespread propaganda, few have any 
distinct idea of what they mean when they use the term 
"industrial education" or "technical education," or any 
definite opinion as to those who are to be chiefly benefited 
by it, or when it ought to be acquired, or how it can be 
introduced. 

In the public consideration of any question the trend 
of thought seems to revolve around a central point, and 
there comes a time when it is niecessary to call a halt 
and take stock of the situation. Certain aspects are al- 
ways being insisted upon, and others equally or more im- 
portant are ignored. Incorrect estimates are made, wrong 
views are taken, and the resulting action is foredoomed 
to failure and great economic waste. 

Education is a peculiar business, and every man con- 
siders himself an authority and perfectly capable of saying 
how schools of all kinds should be conducted. In allowing 
the weight we do to these often ill-formed and immature 
opinions, we are apt to forget that the best in our educa- 
tional systems has developed out of experience and not out 
of mere discussion. It is true that the man in the street pro- 
vides the wherewithal for carrying on the work. It is also 
a recognized principle that "the man who pays the piper 
calls the tune." We have also the right to choose our 
physician; but not many men have the temerity to dictate 
to him the treatment he shall prescribe or how it shall be 
administered. 

The attitude of the public controls to a very large 



6 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

extent the management and, through the management, 
the curriculum, work, and organization of our schools, 
and only when our people have been forced to the con- 
clusion that they are not all born experts on educational 
affairs, may the teacher hope for freedom from igno- 
rant and captious criticism. Let us take Germany as an 
illustration of a country having a sane public attitude 
towards educational affairs. Public opinion there is very 
much like public opinion in America, but with a vital dif- 
ference — the German workman is fair enough to believe 
that some men know more about education than he does, 
while the American workman thinks he knows more about 
it than even those who have made it the business of their 
lives. 

Industrial education is a popular subject, and it is now 
the predominant custom for all educationists to advocate 
it whether they know anything about it or not. "Assume 
a virtue if you have it not" seems to be the guiding prin- 
ciple, and many men who have accomplished little or 
nothing in other fields of educational effort are achieving 
publicity and popularity in advocating this new or 
rather re-born movement. 

Educational propaganda seems to run in streaks. " Phys- 
ical drill," "kindergarten," "art," "manual training," "re- 
ligious education," "household science," "sex hygiene," 
"school cadets," and now " industrial education." Each 
is advocated strongly for a time, occupies the centre of 
the stage in the full glare of the limelight, and long before 
its full fruition is achieved some new candidate for popu- 
lar favor appears on the scene, and the same process is 
repeated. It is earnestly to be hoped that industrial edu- 
cation will share a better fate and that the serious efforts 
now being put forth will not be relaxed until a general 
system of industrial education, suitable to all classes and 
each locality, is achieved. 

Investigations and commissions to inquire into indus- 



INTRODUCTION 7 

trial education are becoming quite chronic, and no State or 
Province is considered to be in the direct line of educational 
progress that does not initiate one of them. As a matter of 
fact, we knew the salient features almost twenty-five years 
ago, and already have much more information than is being 
utilized. If any more investigations are to be conducted 
or commissions issued, they should be first from within and 
not from without; that is, they should concern themselves 
with conditions that have to be met locally and not those 
that exist in some country three or four thousand miles off. 
If ever industrial training is to be economically justifiable 
and educationally beneficial, we must come down from the 
clouds, be more definite in our aims, accept conditions as 
they are, while working to improve them, and take the 
individual locality as the point of attack. 

The great problem of the twentieth century is the 
problem of reducing or eliminating waste — waste of time, 
effort, money, and lives. Economic losses through indus- 
trial inefficiency and incapacity are beyond calculation. 
But probably in no other phase of our present-day civili- 
zation is there more direct waste and extravagance than 
in our educational systems. If a factory were definitely 
designed to turn out a certain article and eighty or ninety 
per cent of its product fell short of completion, that insti- 
tution would speedily go to the wall, and cease to exist as 
a commercial factor. 

It is pleasant to hoodwink ourselves, but very far from 
being profitable, and we have been engaged in this hood- 
winking process in regard to education for many years. 
The people of Canada, and still more those of the United 
States, have long flattered themselves that their educa- 
tional systems are democratic, and this flattering unction 
has been like charity in that it covered a multitude of sins. 

We have been told that everybody can get an education, 
and that the child of the Prime Minister or President sits 
on the same bench as the child of the laborer. As a matter 



8 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

of fact, our educational systems are, and always have 
been, aristocratic in the highest degree. A democratic sys- 
tem of education would provide for the effective instruc- 
tion of the eighty or ninety per cent of the people, as eco- 
nomic units, and not only for the ten or twenty per cent 
who proceed to high schools and universities, as at present. 

There are many questions in connection with the sub- 
ject, on which there seems to be, by tacit consent, a con- 
spiracy of silence, but this conspiracy cannot be main- 
tained much longer and these questions will have to be 
faced. Among them are, the lack of parental influence, 
guidance, and control; the power of the boy to do as he 
pleases in everything, particularly as to deciding when he 
shall leave school and the choice of an occupation; the ne- 
cessity for a total reorganization of the elementary school 
course of study; the need or otherwise of industrial training 
for the so-called unskilled workers — those performing 
operations learned in a week and doing them as skillfully 
then as they would with months of training. What can we 
do for these boys or girls? 

Some time ago I was passing through a button factory 
and saw a girl seated in front of a small machine. On one 
side of her machine was a box full of bone button blanks. 
She took one of the blanks with her left hand, placed it on 
the plate of the machine and deposited the pierced button 
in a box on her right. Her actions became as automatic as 
the machine itself. She was able to talk, stare from the 
window, and do her work without the slightest thought 
being devoted to it. Nine hours a day ! The employer was 
asked what could be done to make that girl of more use to 
him. He answered, "Nothing." 

I saw a boy in a biscuit factory, seated on a box beside a 
traveling canvas platform on which were placed biscuits 
in transit from the ovens to the cooling-room. He held, 
with two hands, a flat wooden mallet and jerked the plat- 
form up and down, ever without ceasing, in order to pre- 



INTRODUCTION 9 

vent the biscuits sticking. Again nine hours a day! The 
same question was asked and the same reply received. The 
reader will notice that the question was not what could be 
done to make the boy or girl of more use to themselves. It 
had to be put purely from the employer's point of view. 
There are hundreds and thousands of such occupations, 
and those who are engaged in them form a large and most 
diflScult part of our problem. 

Social and educational workers like to denounce the 
modern factory system and the subdivision of labor, but 
it is wasted effort. They are both here to stay, and [the 
sooner we cease to rail, and begin to recognize the con- 
ditions that exist, rather than attempt to legislate for 
conditions that we would like to exist, the sooner we shall 
accomplish something educationally beneficial and eco- 
nomically sound. 

Both foreign and home investigators are too apt to con- 
cern themselves with the large cities, but the problem is 
not primarily one of the big city. If ever it is to be worked 
out satisfactorily the small town and isolated community 
must receive much more consideration. A writer on 
"Apprenticeship" in 1882 says: — 

Small villages, country cross-roads and " corners " I thought 
might present favorable conditions [for apprenticeship systems], 
but they seemed at first hardly worth considering. I examined the 
census returns, however, and found that of the 50,000,000 inhab- 
itants of the United States, 9,000,000 only reside in cities and 
towns of 20,000 inhabitants and over 41,000,000 have their homes 
in the smaller towns and in the country. 

The present situation, according to the United States 
Census of 1910, is as follows : Out of a population of 91,972,- 
266, an aggregate of 34,153,014 live in cities with popula- 
tions of 10,000 and over. This means that nearly 63 per 
cent of the people of the United States live in the smaller 
towns and in the country. According to the last Canadian 
census, 75.6 per cent of the population live in communi- 



10 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

ties of less than 5000 inhabitants. From these figures it 
will be evident that if the bulk of the people is to be 
educated, the smaller towns and villages must receive 
ample consideration. Though, perhaps, in a number of these 
smaller towns agriculture is the main industry, yet a num- 
ber of manufactures are carried on, in some cases under 
most favorable conditions ; and though * * Keep the boys on the 
farm " is a popular cry, yet it is doubtful if that is altogether 
just to the boy with a taste for purely mechanical pursuits. 

There is a prejudice against working in the industries. 
The boy will not go into a shop where he has to don over- 
alls and soil his hands, if he can help it. Both parents and 
teachers are largely to blame for this by directing the 
thoughts of the boy to "white shirt and black coat jobs," 
which strangely enough in a democratic country are sup- 
posed to confer a higher social status. 

The term "industrial," as used until very recently, 
shows the popular conception. It was, and in some cases 
still is, applied in a narrow, limited, and degraded sense 
to schools for moral delinquents, as though industrial pur- 
suits were to be engaged in only by those who had broken 
the laws of the country. Indeed, some American critics 
have said that if a boy wished to secure education for in- 
dustry, he must be either a negro, an Indian, or a criminal. 

Throughout the following pages the term "America" 
will be taken to include both Canada and the United States 
— neither country having the exclusive right to its use. 
The term "industrial" will apply to that form of instruc- 
tion which is designed and calculated to benefit the rank 
and file — the large majority who will work at the bench 
and machine, and not the select few who are being trained 
in higher institutions for directive and managerial posi- 
tions. The proper name for such higher instruction is 
"technical." 

It is the purpose of this essay to discuss the problems 
of industrial education with suggestions for their solution. 



INTRODUCTION 11 

and to point out methods by which the enormous economic 
waste now prevalent in the practical administration and 
organization of educational affairs may be eliminated, and 
adequate returns secured — in the shape of the "fitted pro- 
duct" — for the vast expenditure that is being incurred 
and which will be largely increased in the future. 



II 

THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 

At present the ranks of artisans and mechanics, both skilled 
and unskilled, are recruited almost entirely from the ele- 
mentary schools. Unfortunately they are not entirely com- 
posed of those who finish even that course, but contain 
in addition many who leave before reaching the highest 
grades. Here is the statement of a manufacturer quoted in 
Mr. Arthur Dean's " The Worker and the State " : — 

I have made enquiry of over a hundred workmen in my employ, 
machinists largely, hence representing a trade of an intelligence 
higher than the average. The enquiry developed two facts, first, 
out of lt)2 men there was not to be found a single graduate of a 
high school or a person who ever attended as a pupil in a high 
school course. Second, out of 102 men I found only seven pupils 
who had completed the course in the grammar (elementary) 
schools. From this it appears that the education of all these 
mechanics is limited to such instruction as is furnished by the 
grammar schools and that ninety-three per cent of them belong 
to the class of pupils that drop out of school before completing the 
grammar school course. 

General investigation and experience show that this is 
typical of all large industrial concerns, and surely prove 
the absolute necessity of establishing at least the begin- 
nings of industrial training in the elementary schools, espe- 
cially as some measure of that evanescent and elusive qual- 
ity known as "culture" can be imparted at the same time. 
This reaches the heart of the matter, which cannot be said 
of other suggested remedies. 

For example, there is a movement now on foot to raise 
the minimum age for school exemption from fourteen to 
sixteen, and also to make attendance at evening continua- 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 13 

tion schools compulsory up to the age of seventeen or eight- 
een, for those not otherwise receiving instruction. These 
are both consummations devoutly to be wished, but should 
not something else be done first? Consider the following 
facts from "Education for Industrial Purposes," by Dr. 
John Seath, Superintendent of Education for Ontario : — - 

As to the primary schools : Out of an estimated total population 
in the Province of 2,687,861 there were enrolled in the public (ele- 
mentary) schools 401,268, with an average daily attendance of 
240,008 — that is 59.81 per cent of the enrolment, and in the sep- 
arate schools (elementary Catholic), 55,034, with an average 
daily attendance of 34,553, — that is 62.78 per cent. Of these 
239,331 (125,210 boys and 114,121 girls) were enrolled in rural and 
216,971 (10,966 boys and 107,305 girls) in urban schools. Of the 
foregoing it is estimated that about 1070 girls and 1030 boys in 
rural and 970 girls and 930 boys in urban localities — a total of 
4000 — leave school from the third form; and about 9190 boys 
and 8810 girls in rural and 10,750 boys and 10,250 girls in urban 
localities — a total of 39,000 — from the fourth form. Accord- 
ingly, as far as attendance at our Provincial schools is concerned, 
a grand total of about 43,000 end their education in the third and 
fourth forms : those from the third form leaving generally at from 
ten to twelve years of age, and those from the fourth form at from 
thirteen to fifteen. 

The United States Commissioner of Education gives the 
following particulars : Of 25,000,000 children of school age 
(five to eighteen), less than 20,000,000 are enrolled in 
schools, and the average daily attendance does not exceed 
14,000,000 for an average school term of less than eight 
months of twenty days each. The average daily attend- 
ance of those enrolled in the public schools is only 113 days 
in the year. It is estimated also that less than half the 
children finish the first six grades. In ten States less than 
two thirds of the school population are enrolled. In seven- 
teen States less than two thirds of those enrolled are in 
average daily attendance. In twenty-six States the aver- 
age length of a school term is less than one hundred and 
sixty days. In forty-two States the average attendance is 



14 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

less than one hundred days, in nineteen States less than 
seventy-five days, in five States less than fifty days. 

In contrast to the above take the official figures of the 
German educational authorities, which state that less than 
two per cent of the total number of children between the 
ages of six and fourteen are not in school, and only 0.01 
per cent are illegally kept away from school. 

Let us now consider an English example. The number of 
young persons in the city of Manchester between fourteen 
and seventeen years of age is 40,000. The attendance at 
evening or secondary schools is not more than 15,000, so 
that 62.5 per cent attend neither day nor evening schools. 
In the whole of England and Wales in 1906 and 1907, the 
total number between the same ages was 2,022,300, and 
no fewer than 1,498,349 of these (74 per cent) were attend- 
ing neither day nor evening schools. 

The figures from Canada and the United States go to 
show either that compulsory laws regarding elementary 
education do not exist, or that if they are on the statute book 
they are not enforced. It is the impression in some quar- 
ters that all has been done that is necessary when a law has 
received the assent of the legislature, but surely before new 
laws are promulgated it would be wise to enforce those we 
already have. If new laws are enacted and treated in the 
same way as the old, the situation will not be materially 
improved. Further, to raise the age to sixteen and con- 
tinue, without radical alteration, the present system of 
public school education would be criminal and extravagant 

folly. 

In 1909, a total amount of $403,647,289 was raised for 
public school purposes in the United States. In Ontario 
for the corresponding time and purpose the amoimt was 
$10,979,368. In view of these large expenditures and the 
educational loss to the pupils, it is not too much to ask 
that steps be taken immediately to stop the economic 
waste caused by the lax enforcement of the present laws. 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 15 

for it should be remembered that the educational machin- 
ery must be kept going notwithstanding the absence of 
such a large proportion of the children. Probably this will 
never be done until truant or attendance officers are ap- 
pointed by the State or Province, thus freeing them from 
local control. 

These facts lead to the inevitable conclusion that our 
problem, for the present at least, is one for the elementary 
schools. It is an undisputed fact that, in America, not more 
than twenty per cent of elementary school pupils are able 
to climb the next rung of the "educational ladder" and 
enter the secondary schools. The remaining eighty per 
cent are prevented from taking the next step by the follow- 
ing causes : — 

(a) The idea of the parent that further education of the 
kind hitherto received will not materially assist the boy in 
earning a living or making his way in the world. 

(6) Economic causes — their small earnings being nec- 
essary to the up-keep of the family. 

(c) The natural restlessness of the boy, who wishes to be 
doing something that he considers "worth while." 

(d) Mental incapacity for further intellectual advance- 
ment. 

What would be thought of the business organization and 
management of a firm that concentrated its attention on 
twenty per cent of its product? In addition to this, con- 
sider the fact that even of the eighty per cent, a large num- 
ber drop out by the way. To continue the factory analogy, 
it is as if, say, at the twentieth or thirtieth operation in 
making a shoe, the process was stopped and the product 
thrown on the market for what it would fetch, entirely 
regardless of the labor that had been spent upon it. 

In addition to this again, a large part of even this unfin- 
ished product has to be done twice over. In the factory this 
entails loss of time, money, and material; and there can be 
such a thing, in education, as waste of time, money, energy. 



16 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

and mental resources of a nation, just the same as there is 
waste of the same factors in the manufacture of goods. It 
has been estimated by the Superintendent of the Cleveland 
Public Schools that approximately $26,000,000 are annu- 
ally wasted in the United States in taking children over 
work a second time. Dr. Ayres affirms that every sixth 
child in the elementary schools of the United States is a 
"repeater." Of course, it would not be fair to assume that 
all this sum is wasted, for it not infrequently happens that 
more is gained by a repetition of the same work than by 
taking up new work for which an insecure foimdation has 
been laid, but it is quite certain that a very large portion of 
it is wasted. 

This, perhaps, may be accounted for by (1) the mental 
incapacity of the child; (2) poor and ineffective teaching; 
and (3) faulty grading and organization. For the first, the 
social conditions, environment, parentage, and feeding are 
largely responsible, and children of this type should be 
treated in special schools. This is quite as much a social as 
an educational problem. 

For the second, the educational authorities and directors 
must be blamed, though of course the people must accept 
the final responsibility. Inefficient workmen, who have to 
deal with inanimate material, are never retained in a shop; 
and I am not yet able to see why inefficient teachers, who 
have in their care not wood, metal, leather, or stone, but 
material vastly more precious, should be allowed to re- 
tain positions where they can work incalculable harm to 
the future of the nation. Professor Harvey, of Ypsilanti, 
says: — 

Of the five hundred thousand teachers teaching in the United 
States, about one hundred thousand are teaching their first 
term of school this year. Of this one hundred thousand, scarcely 
more than ten thousand have had any professional training, 
or have given to the subject of teaching any preliminary thought 
that could be called professional study. 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 17 

Would any manufacturer place in the hands of an abso- 
lute novice the manipulation of costly material and the 
working of a costly machine? It is a decided economic 
waste to pay salary (high or low) to an incompetent teacher; 
yet in a large number of the smaller towns and cities, and 
in some of the larger ones, there are many teachers who 
have been thirty or forty years in the service, and have 
given of their best, and whose services supervisors and in- 
spectors from perfectly justifiable, humane, and sentimental 
reasons hesitate to dispense with. It would be an eco- 
nomically sound policy for the nation to offer salaries high 
enough to allow provision to be made for retirement, or to 
generously support an adequate pension scheme. Many 
towns are already doing this, and in these cases the above 
condition will soon be eliminated. Instances are known 
where women teachers have spent thirty or forty years in 
one room, teaching one grade of pupils. This is almost as 
bad as performing one of the hundred operations in the 
making of a shoe. All the inefficient teachers are not, how- 
ever, of this class. Some are young, and here the inspector 
has to face another proposition. Directly he suggests that 
a change be made, in the interests of the children, all kinds 
of influence — social, church, political, society, lodge — are 
brought to bear upon the trustees, and his efforts to 
strengthen the staff, looking towards the efficient educa- 
tion of the children, are frustrated. Cases are not unknown 
where influences of this character have been powerful 
enough to secure the removal from office of the super- 
intendent himself. 

Another point to be considered in this connection is the 
fact that probably not more than half the boys leaving our 
elementary schools ever come into contact with a male 
teacher. An English observer has stated that the word 
"teacher," unless otherwise designated, is, in America, of 
feminine gender. 

The third cause — faulty grading and organization — 



18 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

is closely related to the course of study. Dr. Ayres 
says: — 

We must so change our courses of study or our methods of 
grading and promotion that the children who make rapid progress 
through the grades shall be at least equal in numbers to those who 
make slow progress. At present our courses of study are not fitted 
to the abilities of the average pupil but to those of the unusually 
bright one. In an investigation in New York it was found that 
for every child making rapid progress through the grades there 
were eight who made slow progress. Last year (1909) , in a Massa- 
chusetts city, for every one making rapid progress there were 
twenty-one making slow progress. In a large city in Pennsyl- 
vania the slow pupils are fourteen times as numerous as the rapid 
ones. In five other cities in different parts of the country the slow 
pupils are from ten times as numerous to one hundred and fifty 
times as numerous as the rapid ones. It is probably a most con- 
servative statement to say that in the average city there are at 
least ten times as many children making slow progress as there 
are making rapid progress. To change this condition is the great 
school problem. 

One of the important factors in this problem is the 
veneration which the public commonly has for the "course 
of study." How did we get our present course of study? 
Any one who has studied its organization cannot help com- 
ing to the conclusion that its growth (if growth it can be 
called) has not been natural and by accretion but decidedly 
artificial. Originally it was composed of what we call the 
rudiments. As the ideas of the people expanded, not only 
were the limits of each subject extended, but one by one 
new subjects clamored for admission; and as each new claim- 
ant arose it was deferred to, and the subject was added, 
a process of shortening the time given to each being gone 
through to make room for them all. College entrance 
requirements determined whether they should be admitted 
or rejected. The result is what we call the traditional 
course of study. 

Our problem is further complicated by the gap that ex- 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 19 

ists between the close of the elementary school course and 
the time of entry into a definite and permanent trade or 
occupation. This is a period in which much harm is done. 
Not only is the work of the elementary school forgotten and 
rendered of no effect, but habits are acquired which con- 
siderably hinder the effects of any further education that 
may be attempted. One or two years' education at this 
age would be as great as, or in ultimate value probably 
greater than, double the number at an earlier age, owing 
to the foundation that had been laid, and to a broadened 
intelligence and expanded powers. 

It seems almost impossible to find sufficient work of a 
really educative character to occupy all between thirteen 
and sixteen who now leave the schools. This makes it the 
duty of the State to reduce the supply of adolescent labor, 
and in this way do something to minimize the physical 
and moral degeneration caused by work which provides 
neither education in the present nor economic prospects 
in the future. 

These prospects must be considered if the education 
given is to be effective; but we hear frequent sneers at 
"bread-and-butter education," and some good people are 
very much afraid that we shall make our education "utili- 
tarian." As a matter of fact, the founders of our edu- 
cational system were entirely utilitarian. High schools 
were to fit for college, which in its turn was to prepare for 
the ministry. Elementary schools were for the children of 
the masses to teach them "to read and write and cast 
accounts," which, according to business men, they are not 
now doing. 

We are told that if we make the education given in our 
schools practical, we shall be depriving the children of the 
culture that a liberal education gives; but the question is 
not what we would like to do if we could retain the pupils 
for eight, ten, or twelve years, but what we are able to do 
with the eighty or ninety per cent we can retain for only 



20 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

four, six, or eight years. After all, what is the essential dif- 
ference between cultural and vocational subjects? A sub- 
ject that is cultural for one is vocational for another. We 
must get rid of our academic horror of the vocational and 
worship less at the shrine of the cultural. Chemistry to the 
farmer is a vocational subject, to the minister or lawyer 
it is cultural. Mathematics to the engineer or machinist is 
vocational, to the journalist or stenographer it is cultural. 
Wherein lies the difference .f* It seems to be a fact that vo- 
cational education can be made of some definite use and 
that cultural education, beyond the general broadening 
and training of the mind, cannot. Some one has said, **The 
education we can use is a blessing, the education we cannot 
use is a curse." There is no really vital conflict between the 
two. The curriculum can be organized in such a way as 
to direct the boy and girl towards the industrial, without 
in the slightest degree impairing, but, on the other hand, 
adding to the culture now imparted. 

Nobody has as yet satisfactorily defined what the educa- 
tionist means when he pleads for culture. It surely cannot 
consist in the amount of education a man has, for univer- 
sity students both in Canada and the United States have 
been known to act like "hooligans" and "toughs," and 
many a so-called uneducated tramp has given evidence 
of gentlemanly bearing and kindly feeling. As Ruskin 
says, "We are always in these days endeavoring to sepa- 
rate intellect and manual labor ; we want one man to be 
always thinking and another to be always working, and 
we call one a gentleman and the other an operative; 
whereas the workman ought often to be thinking and the 
thinker ought often to be working, and both should be 
gentlemen in the best sense." 

In the present economic condition of society the bread- 
and-butter problem is the great question of life for the large 
majority, and is one of the most logical and effective argu- 
ments that can be made. It is the manifest duty of the 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 21 

State, if it be truly democratic, and if it be organized on 
the principle of the greatest good to the greatest num- 
ber, to make the chief work of the elementary schools that 
of training the great bread-winner, the hand, assuming of 
course the self-evident proposition that the hand cannot 
be effectively trained without at the same time training 
the head. 

We are told that our educational systems should pre- 
pare our children to live a worthy life, but it cannot be too 
often repeated that no one can live a worthy life unless 
he has ability to make a living. In France it used to be 
said that every private soldier carried a marshal's baton in 
his knapsack. We have modified this and affect to believe 
that every boy can rise to be Prime Minister or Presi- 
dent, and have moulded our educational systems on the 
assumption that every boy will. 
Nicholas Murray Butler has said: — 

It will be a grave error to set vocational and liberal training in 
sharp antagonism to each other. The purpose of the former is to 
pave the way for some appreciation of the latter and to provide 
an economic basis for it to rest upon. The equally grave error of 
the past has been to frame a course of study on the hypothesis 
that every student was to go forward in the most deliberate and 
amplest fashion to the study of the products of the intellectual 
life regardless of the basis of the economic support. 

The more this question of industrial education is studied, 
the more it will be found to have its roots in the primary 
schools; and until it is seriously attacked from this point a 
large portion of the money expended will be wasted, our 
efforts fruitless, the results achieved unsatisfying and dis- 
appointing, and the practical effect upon the great mass 
of industrial workers very little. No matter what efforts 
we may put forth, it is by a reorganized course of study 
and by longer and more regular attendance at the day 
schools that the best results will be accomplished. 

Efforts were made to do something in this connection by 



22 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

the introduction of manual training. It was expected that 
this subject would do much to remedy the defects even then 
admitted to exist. Much was expected of it, but many of 
these expectations have been unreasonable in view of the 
limited time allotted to the work. For this limitation the 
teachers (of academic subjects) and college entrance require- 
ments have been largely responsible. In the average public 
school system one to one and a half hours a week is all 
that is given to manual training. When it is remembered 
that this time includes instruction in making working 
dawings, care of tools, growth, seasoning, and marketing 
of lumber, in addition to the actual work of construction, 
it will be readily seen that the manual training teacher 
has a serious task before him. 

In many places in the United States women teachers 
of this subject are employed, but in Ontario and Canada 
generally, the regulations allow the employment of men 
only. 

Manual training has never had a fair chance. The sub^ 
ject has been handicapped at every turn, — insuflScient 
time, meagre equipment, academic opposition, public in« 
difference, limited ability of the teacher; and yet, not- 
withstanding all this, a large measure of success has been 
achieved. No educationist or public man of any standing 
to-day can be found who would seriously advocate the 
elimination of the subject from the school curriculum. 
It only needs fair conditions and adequate opportunities, 
to demonstrate what it can do, and the aid it can render 
in laying a foundation on which can be erected a solid 
structure of industrial education. 

It is not too much to say that the present agitation for 
industrial education has largely grown out of, and devel- 
oped from, the manual training movement. This is owing 
to two causes, — the far-sightedness of many of the men 
engaged in teaching it, and its failure to directly influence 
industry. Almost every man engaged in the active promo- 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 23 

tion of industrial education to-day has come into it from 
the manual training classroom. These men recognize that 
a reorganization and readjustment of our present manual 
training courses ought to be made, and can be made, in such 
a way as to afford a much wider industrial knowledge, and 
to give a much broader industrial experience. 

"Art" is a subject closely allied to manual training, if 
indeed it is not another form of it, which has been cap- 
tured by the culturists and diverted from its original pur- 
pose. It was claimed for it, on its introduction into the 
elementary schools, that it was the language of the indus- 
tries, and as such would directly help the future worker. 
At the time of its entry into the schools the word "art" 
was scarcely invented and the term "drawing" was used, 
but drawing is no longer heard of. The subject has become 
more and more exclusively cultural in its aims and meth- 
ods, and its original industrial purpose has been almost 
entirely lost sight of. The terms "art" and "drawing" are 
by no means synonymous. Art is the larger term, and as at 
present taught does not in many cases include the latter. 

The history of art as a school subject is about as follows: 
First came the rigid copying from the flat with a line of 
poker-like stiffness, drawing of type models, no imagination, 
no color, no freedom; only rigid adherence to type. After 
about thirty years of this came a revolt; flat copies, type 
models, the ruler, and all instruments of precision were 
abolished, and free drawing, the unrestricted play of the 
imagination, and the plentiful use of color became the 
objects of instruction, and this is very commonly where we 
stand to-day with one or two notable exceptions. 

In the reaction against stiffness, rigidity, and authority 
we have swung too far, and color is now the be-all and end- 
all of many courses in this subject. Whatever the merits 
and demerits of the old system, it certainly had one great 
advantage, that of inculcating fidelity and accuracy. Now 
some of the drawings, so called, that we get do not bear "the 



34 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in 
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." 
A child's interest in making pretty things should not be 
allowed to crowd out his interest in making them right. 

I do not wish to be misunderstood in this connection. 
The introduction of color has certainly revived interest in 
a subject that had grown lifeless and dead, and no course of 
drawing that claims to be either educational or practical, 
or both, could take the retrograde step of banishing it, but 
it should in every case be secondary to good drawing. The 
most brilliant display of color loses its effect when accom- 
panied by bad drawing. The function of drawing in the 
elementary school, while it is educational and develops an 
aesthetic appreciation for beauty, should be to develop 
many future artisans, not a few artists, though both pur- 
poses should be kept fully in view. At present it looks as 
though we were trying to turn every elementary school 
pupil into an artist, and the attempt must in the very 
nature of things fail. The course must be both practical 
and aesthetic, training the many to become productive arti- 
sans, and all to be able to appreciate and derive pleasure 
from the contemplation of the great masterpieces of nature, 
painting, and construction. A German critic, after investi- 
gating the methods of teaching drawing in the schools of 
the United States, says: — 

The results of the instruction, too, in the lower grades exceed 
all expectations. In the advanced grades, however, they do not 
wholly accord with this advanced beginning. While the work of 
the children of eight or nine years is so admirable, the pupils of 
fifteen or sixteen offer correspondingly little that is satisfactory. 
We should expect from pupils of the highest grades that in draw- 
ing from nature they would have the ability to see form clearly 
and to apprehend an object accurately. But instruction has 
failed to develop a disposition to see clearly; the plant drawings of 
the sixteen-year old pupil frequently present the same schematic 
pictures as those of the lower grades. Manifestly this is due to the 
fact that the instruction wholly neglects exercises in accuracy. One 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 25 

is forcibly reminded of the desultory methods of piano instruc- 
tion that plays only parlor pieces without introducing the finger 
exercises necessary for the systematic progress of the pupil. 

The subject corresponding to manual training that has 
been introduced into the curriculum for girls is household 
science, and this has been interpreted, perhaps, even more 
narrowly than manual training. The broad and compre- 
hensive term has been translated to mean "cookery," but 
while it is true that this is one of the most important 
branches of it, it by no means follows that it is the whole. 
The teachers themselves recognize that this is a narrow 
interpretation, but are almost powerless. When it is rec- 
ognized that one and a half or two hours a week is all the 
time allowed, and that manual training and household 
science are the first subjects to be cut off in the case of pres- 
sure of work arising from preparation for examinations, and 
other causes, it will readily be seen that both the teachers 
and the subject are seriously handicapped. 

Another problem that is one of great importance is the 
organizing of evening classes. Every country that has de- 
voted any thought to the subject of industrial education, 
and has translated that thought into action, has commenced 
operations by organizing a more or less eflficient system of 
evening schools or classes. The backbone of the English 
system is its evening schools, and to a less extent this is true 
also of Germany. 

It is admitted that it is not only necessary to train those 
who will in future occupy our factories and workshops, 
but that it is equally and perhaps more important that 
those who are at present engaged therein should be given 
an opportunity to obtain that training which they were 
not able to obtain while they were in attendance at day 
schools, and which will not now come to them while tied 
to one machine or confined to one process during their 
daily employment. 

Recently there has come into the minds of those en- 



26 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

gaged in the organization of industrial education grave 
doubts as to whether the country is receiving an adequate 
return for the expenditure incurred by this branch of our 
educational system. In Canada the movement is just be- 
ginning. In the United States in certain centres, not by 
any means widely spread outside the large towns, evening 
schools have long been established. Articles have recently 
appeared in some sections of the educational press headed 
"The Failure of Evening Schools," and in some instances a 
good case has been made out. It would be an exaggeration 
to say that they have failed, but it can be said without the 
slightest hesitation that they have not achieved the success 
that might reasonably have been expected and that their 
importance warrants. Few will deny that in individual cases 
sound and solid progress is being made, but this is accom- 
panied by enormous waste. For one who gets out of these 
schools all that they are capable of giving, thousands do 
not justify the expenditure that is being made on their 
behalf. Evening schools are one of the vital problems in 
connection with the whole question, and on their successful 
development and management the ultimate efficiency of 
industrial education will largely depend. 

Their organization will differ according to the character 
of the town where they are to be established. The towns 
in which manufacturing industries furnish the chief occu- 
pations for the people may be grouped into three classes, 
each class constituting a problem of its own: — 

1. Those towns generally small in population where 
there is carried on mainly one industry in which practically 
all the people are engaged. 

2. The towns in which there are a number of small but 
important industries. 

3. The large towns and cities in which there are two or 
three main industries employing a large number of the pop- 
ulation and also a very large number of smaller industries. 

- Are we getting the fullest value from our schools even 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 27 

from a material point of view? It is difficult if not impos- 
sible to obtain an accurate estimate of the total amount 
invested in educational plants and buildings in America, 
but we are quite safe in saying that it totals to an enor- 
mous sum, and we are equally safe in stating that the pub- 
lic is not getting anything like an adequate return for the 
amount invested. These buildings are in use five or five 
and a half hours a day for five days a week for, at the most, 
forty weeks in the year and they are closed entirely for at 
least two months. The length of the school day and term 
will be dealt with later, but even with the present organiza- 
tion is it not possible to get more out of our schools? 

The school is, of course, primarily intended for the chil- 
dren, and their interests must be the first consideration, 
nothing being allowed to militate against those interests. 
But is it not feasible, without in the least sacrificing the 
welfare of the children, so to plan and build our schools 
that they may be used for extended educational and social 
service? 

Another important consideration is the attitude of par- 
ents. The average parent is prejudiced against industrial 
occupations. As an illustration take the following instance. 
The principal of a large collegiate institute (high school) in 
the Province of Ontario had a boy who failed to gain his pro- 
motion, but who had done remarkably well in manual train- 
ing. This school has an industrial class, the boys spending 
half their time in the shops of the school and the other half 
in academic work, more or less related to that done in the 
shops. The father of the boy, a prosperous foreman moulder, 
was recommended to put him in the shops, after a prelimi- 
nary course in the industrial class. He replied that he was 
not going to let his son slave away his life in the factories as 
he had done, getting up early to breathe dusty air all day 
and then going home too tired to do anything except to 
sleep in order to prepare for a new day's toil. This is 
typical of the attitude of a vast majority of parents. They 



28 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

desire education for their children in order that they may 
"rise above" the ordinary walks of life, that they may not 
have to work as hard as their fathers did. Theoretically 
they believe thoroughly in industrial education, but so far 
as it leads to actual work in a shop or factory it is for the 
son of somebody else and not their own. 

We boast largely of the interest of our people in educa- 
tional affairs, but after all what does it amount to? Mr. 
Chancellor, in his book on "American Schools," says: — 

The efforts that have been made, in the cities of the United 
States, to interest the fathers of the school children in the schools 
have usually proven fruitless. The American father, whether a 
business manager or a clerk, a mechanic or manual laborer, is sel- 
dom deeply concerned for the educational welfare of his children. 
He is too busy to attend to these matters. The American mothers 
are likewise too busy with home affairs to interest themselves as a 
class in even those matters lying outside of the home that are as 
near to the home interests as are the affairs of the schools. 

If this is true in connection with general education, which 
has been in operation for many years, it is still more true in 
regard to industrial education which in its modern form is 
of comparatively recent growth. 

In an English inquiry into the success of evening schools 
the following amongst other questions were asked of a 
number of persons who had been engaged in evening school 
work for many years: "What is the attitude of parents 
towards evening continuation schools ? " " Do they encour- 
age their children to attend?" Seventy-five answers were 
received from seventy-nine persons, and every one of these 
replies stated that the attitude of the majority of the par- 
ents was one of indifference. On the other side of the 
question the president of the Textile Workers' Union of 
America says: — 

The same keen desire is in the hearts of all parents to see their 
boys and girls make good, not as industrial specialists, as simply 
parts of a machine where nothing counts but speed and produc- 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 29 

tion, but as men and women whose early training and education 
will equip them to grasp the higher technique of any trade or call- 
ing they may be best fitted for, to know the way a thing is done 
and the very best and most artistic way of doing it, coupled with 
an economic knowledge of their labor. 

Another feature that further complicates the problem is 
the early age at which the pupils leave the elementary 
school. There is no question but that in the majority of 
cases the boy himseK decides whether he shall continue his 
attendance or not, entirely irrespective of the wishes of his 
parents. The Report of the first Massachusetts Industrial 
Commission of 1906 says, "Mother after mother declares, 
* We wanted him to stay in school/ " The average boy of 
to-day will take neither advice nor direction in this matter. 
Of course it is said that the school is to blame for this, that 
the boy does not think it worth his while to remain in school, 
and that the subjects offered do not appeal to him as being 
of any practical use. This is partly true, but deeper than 
all is the condition which has rendered the authority and 
direction of the parent obsolete. In this matter the parent 
should exercise more intelligent and rational compulsion; 
but compulsion in any form is abhorrent to the democratic 
mind. Parental discretion is almost entirely absent. Allow- 
ing a boy to decide for himself before he has the knowledge 
or capacity for doing so, is to place a handicap upon his 
entire future career. 

The parent and the boy are generally at one in not choos- 
ing any industrial occupation from preference. Boys ignore 
as long as possible the productive side of the industries and 
much prefer those activities which have to do with the dis- 
tribution of the product — trade and commerce. There is 
a common feeling among them, and unfortunately among 
some people of larger growth, that there is a lack of re- 
spectability in having to do anything that soils the hands. 
Boys do not like wearing aprons and overalls. They think 
it looks too much like work. 



30 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

Now as a result of this sort of feeling we see young men 
leave the farms and the workshops and come into towns 
to enter some merchant's store where they can wear good 
clothes every day, and we see young ladies who would 
think it a disgrace if they could not play the piano, but 
who do not think it unbecoming or unwomanly to show a 
profound contempt for the baking-board or the broom. 

The girls taking the household science course in one of 
the high schools in the United States recently petitioned 
the Board of Education to be relieved of the disgrace 
and drudgery of washing dishes. All this, perhaps, is not 
owing to a desire on their part to shirk hard work or because 
of a lack of physical energy. It may be owing to a per- 
fectly natural desire which craves for the greatest possible 
appreciation from the world and to have the best possible 
appearance in the eyes of the world. Now as long as it is 
considered more respectable to be a clerk in a store than 
to be a blacksmith or a carpenter, to be an ordinary clerk 
rather than a skilled mechanic, just so long will the "profes- 
sions" be overcrowded and the industries have to take the 
residuum. 

Most young men would rather be second-rate lawyers 
or doctors than skilled mechanics; would rather be the 
defender in a court of justice of a notorious murderer or 
forger than the designer or builder of an international 
bridge. This is quite as much a social question as an edu- 
cational one. Surely the church has a duty to perform here 
as well as the home and the school. 

The ordinary schoolboy gets the idea from various 
sources that it requires no education to be a mechanic, and 
that brawn and not brains is required. The viewpoint of 
the boy must be changed. His vocational imagination 
must be enlarged in order to widen the area of industrial 
choice and hence the scope of economic success. A Report 
of the American Federation of Labor says, "False views 
and absurd notions possess the minds of too many of our 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 31 

youth, which cause them to shun work at the trades and to 
seek the office or store as much more genteel and fitting." 

If the boy who leaves school early remained in one em- 
ployment until he was receivable in a definite trade, the 
position would not be so serious. He would, at any rate, 
gain habits of stability; but he drifts from one occupation 
to another, becoming more shiftless and less and less in- 
clined to persistent effort and serious study. This can prob- 
ably be partially cured by a larger measure of parental 
discipline and management. 

In the United States Census for 1900 the enumerators 
were required to report the occupations of all children 
between ten and sixteen years of age who were "earning 
money regularly by labor, contributing to the family sup- 
port, or appreciably assisting in mechanical or agricultural 
industry." The total number reported was 1,750,000. Of 
these, sixty per cent were engaged in agriculture and four 
fifths of them were boys. The number of children in other 
occupations was 688,000. Of these, 186,000 (110,000 boys 
and 76,000 girls) were between ten and fourteen years 
of age. Of the 110,000 boys, 59,000 were messenger 
and office boys, servants and waiters or laborers, 12,500 
were employed in textile factories, and 9000 were em- 
ployed in mines and quarries. Of the 76,000 girls, 
50,000 were servants, waitresses, etc., 14,000 were engaged 
in textile factories, and 4000 were dressmakers, tailor- 
esses, etc. 

Even these figures do not portray the whole situation. 
The Government Report on the "Condition of Women 
and Children Wage-Earners," recently compiled by the 
United States Bureau of Labor, reveals startling condi- 
tions. One volume of the nineteen which constitutes the 
full Report is entitled "Juvenile Delinquency in Relation 
to Employment." This gives a study of 4839 delinquent 
children. Of this number a majority (2767) were or had 
been working children. Leaving out the 561 girls we find 



32 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

the employments furnishing the delinquents to be as fol- 
lows : — 



Delivery and errand boys 



491 
449 
73 
66 
51 



Newsboys and bootblacks . 
Telegraph messengers . . 
Street vendors .... 
Amusement hall employees 

More than seventy-five per cent of the delinquents studied 
are reported as from "fair or good homes." Only 419 of 
all the boys had widowed mothers and only 185 were 
orphans. It will be noticed that all the delinquent produc- 
ing occupations are blind alleys which lead to nothing 
either educationally or economically. In view of these 
facts it is evident, first, that there is an educational need 
unsupplied, and, second, that further effort is required 
to inculcate in the minds of a large number of parents a 
larger sense of responsibility for the future welfare of the 
child. 

The problem that meets us here is the training of the 
boy or girl who leaves the elementary school at thirteen 
or fourteen years of age, with the ultimate prospect of 
entering the industrial field. Professor Paul Hanus has 
said, "We are the only progressive nation which allows 
its adolescents — the great majority of them — to drift 
without systematic educational influence from the time 
they are fourteen years of age until they arrive at the 
threshold of citizenship." 

Large numbers leave the elementary schools at this age 
or earlier, and there is reason to believe that the elementary 
school course could and should be finished in less time than 
it takes at present. Andrew S. Draper, Commissioner of 
Education for the State of New York, whose authority 
few will dispute, says: "The hard fact is that we ought to 
get the children well started earlier and push them along 
from one grade to another more rapidly than we do, and I 
entertain no doubt but that we ought to do the work we 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 33 

do in the elementary grades, or such parts of it as are 
fundamental and potential, in at least one less year than 
we take for it." 

If we are to take steps to provide further educational 
training for the fourteen-year-old boy, then the financial 
condition of the parent will have to be taken into considera- 
tion. We in the New World are in the habit of flattering 
ourselves by drawing comparisons between our conditions 
and those that exist in the Old. We are told that if poverty 
exists at all, it is found only in a very modified form. We 
are told also that every boy can get an education, and 
that, if he has the ability, he can climb from the bottom to 
the top of the so-called educational ladder. But this ladder 
has several rungs broken and others so badly damaged 
that they are scarcely safe to tread. In the report of the 
first Massachusetts Industrial Commission, in 1906, parent 
after parent declared that they could have kept their chil- 
dren at school had they wished to stay. How far are these 
representations reliable? There is a tendency in all people 
to exaggerate the diflSculties of their social and financial 
conditions. It is highly probable, however, that a large 
number of parents are actually in need of the earnings of 
the boy or girl from thirteen to sixteen years of age, and 
that a number of the parents who make the necessary 
sacrifice to give their children extended training, do so at 
the expense of their own health and usefulness. 

The Trades' Union Congress of Great Britain places 
first in the list of needed reforms "the State maintenance 
of school children." It is stated that the experience of the 
Manhattan Trade School for Girls goes to indicate that 
about one quarter of the students need some assistance, 
ranging from car-fare to the equivalent of a small wage, 
which the girls would make in trade, and which the parents 
cannot forego. The following extract, taken from the De- 
troit "Free Press" of March 27, 1912, shows a decided 
tendency in the same direction, and it may be safely as- 



34 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

sumed that with the growth and congestion of cities this 
state of affairs will at least show no early diminution: 

To establish a fund from which payment may be made to needy 
families whose sons or daughters are required to attend school, the 
School Board will ask that the Common Council include in the 
budget an extra estimate of $10,000 if the recommendation of the 
real estate committee is accepted. The State law governing this 
was passed last year. It provides that when families are depend- 
ent on the money earned by children who are yet so young that 
they are not allowed to leave school, the Board of Education shall 
pay to the families an amount equal to that which the children 
would earn if employed. Several requests of this sort have been 
received, but the Board has no money to pay out. It is therefore 
making this request to show its willingness to comply with the 
law. 

In addition to the training, along industrial lines, to be 
given by the school, we must also consider that which is 
to be given by the shop. There is a consensus of opinion 
that a system of apprenticeship is necessary to remedy the 
defects of modern industrial organization. This is shown 
by the numerous attempts to revive the system in a form 
calculated to meet present conditions. The president of 
the National Metal Trades Association says: — 

A proper apprenticeship system is essential to the education 
and perfection of skilled mechanics. 

The American Federation of Labor says: — 

It is further recognized that the old apprenticeship system pos- 
sessed many features that were uneconomic and unjust, but with 
the preservation of much that was good, and its application with 
proper blending with the modem idea of perfection in theory, 
it would lead to more satisfactory results. A marked tendency 
towards apprenticeship is taking place, and the feeling expressed 
by both employer and employed is that a gradual return will take 
place if such training is conducted sanely and advantageously to 
the American youth. 

If this be generally admitted, we must establish a sys- 
tem that will give adequate and thorough preparation to 
the young apprentice, safeguard the interests of labor, and 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 35 

give an equitable return to the employer for the capital he 
has invested. In the organization of industrial education 
the system of apprenticeship in its modern revived form 
must be considered as a powerful factor. 

In order that the training given may achieve its object, 
it is essential that the trained person be placed in the posi- 
tion where he can best apply that training. Recent com- 
missions and investigations have demonstrated the urgent 
necessity of taking some steps to prevent the indiscrimi- 
nate choice of occupations by children leaving the elemen- 
tary school. It is also quite clear that, if industrial educa- 
tion is to achieve anything like its full fruition, measures 
must be adopted to influence this choice of occupation in 
such a way that consideration be given to the ability, ca- 
pacity, and predilection of the child, as well as to his future 
prospects in the industry. The step the boy takes at this 
time is a sudden and often irrevocable one. He passes in 
one bound from the discipline and care of the school, such 
as it is, to the freedom, liberty, and license of the wage- 
earner, and, while a child in disposition and knowledge, he 
is allowed to act as an adult without either advice or re- 
sponsibility. 

The numerous openings for child labor, the complex 
character of modern industry, and the limited knowledge 
parents have of occupations outside their own, make it 
impossible for a large number of them to select intelligently 
an occupation for their boys or even to advise them in their 
choice. As a consequence they are allowed to take up 
the first position they hear of, very often with unfortunate 
results. Easily found and well-paid occupations for chil- 
dren have no prospects, and the economic future is sac- 
rificed for present gain. A consideration of these facts has 
led to two types of organization which have for their object 
the giving of direct vocational guidance at this critical 
stage. 

Another important factor in our present problem is the 



36 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

frequent misinterpretation by Americans of foreign sys- 
tems of industrial schools. There is no more complicated 
subject than the study of foreign educational systems. 
It is diflGicult if not impossible for the student to project 
himself into the spirit and genius of the country whose 
system he is investigating. He finds it hard to' delve deep 
enough to discover the real causes which have brought 
about the adoption of certain plans and the accomplish- 
ment of certain results. The English system of industrial 
and technical education was admittedly planned to follow 
closely the German system, yet the most cursory exami- 
nation of the two will show that they are widely apart; and 
unless care be exercised the American people will be mis- 
taking the shadow for the substance in their imitations of 
the German system. 

When deputations and delegations visit American cities, 
they are carefully driven round those districts which con- 
tain the most beautiful residences, parks, and public build- 
ings. They are taken in charge by guides who have pre- 
viously made up their minds that the visitors shall see 
nothing but the best. Only the painstaking independent 
investigator can discover things as they really are. Much 
the same plan has been followed in educational investiga- 
tions. Attention has been concentrated on the large towns 
and imposing institutions, and as a result altogether wrong 
impressions have been formed. 

As a striking example of these wrong impressions based 
on superficial investigation, take the following from the 
Report of the Committee on Apprenticeships of the Lon- 
don (England) County Council: "A special feature is the 
close cooperation which exists in the United States be- 
tween the employers and the trade schools, ... In many 
instances the only way of entry into the workshop is 
through the door of one or other of these institutions." 
(The italics are mine.) This is evidently the result of an 
impression, based on hasty examination, that schools of 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 37 

engineering are trade schools. Again, Mr. Mosely tells us 
in his report that "the aim of education in America (U.S.) 
is to make every boy fit for some definite calling in life." 
Could anything be wider of the mark as descriptive of the 
real situation? If this criticism were true, the present 
movement toward industrial education would not be at 
all necessary. National conceit and self-complacency tend 
to make us hug these misconceptions, and we accept them 
willingly and gladly as an accurate estimate of the real 
state of affairs. » 

Before concluding this chapter, it will be well to state 
what should be the aims and objects of industrial education. 
These may be summarized as follows: — 

1. To teach a boy (or girl) how to earn a living or aid 
him in doing so, in order that he may live a worthy life and 
become a good citizen, self-support being the first obliga- 
tion of citizenship and the necessary prerequisite to a wider 
and more useful service to the community. 

2. To enable the workman to render better service to 
his employer, and so entitle him to receive greater remu- 
neration in the position he at present occupies. 

3. To inspire him with the ambition, and to equip him 
with the knowledge and skill, that will enable him to rise 
from his present position to a higher one. 

4. To develop that industrial elasticity or adaptability 
which will permit him to change readily from one occupa- 
tion or branch to another, should new inventions, changes 
in machinery, or economic conditions render it desirable. 

5. To give an all-round intelligent view of the whole of 
a trade, and thus counteract the narrowing and blighting 
influence of the present minute subdivision of labor, which 
will probably increase rather than diminish. 

6. To provide a supply of skilled labor and to lessen the 
great economic waste in the industries arising from the 
practice of stealing a trade, and from incompetence and 
ignorance. 



38 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

Our subject is one with many phases, — complex and 
multiplex, — and it will have to be resolved into its com- 
ponent parts, and the problems of each met squarely and 
solved separately. In view of what has been said, the prob- 
lem seems to consist of the following elements: — 

1. Placing the schools and all educational organizations 
on a purely business basis so that the greatest possible 
return, both in a material and moral sense, may be secured 
from the investment. ^^ 

2. A reorganization of the elementary school curricu- 
lum in such a manner as will 

(a) give a direct industrial trend to the instruction 
afforded and an industrial bent to the mind of the 
future industrial worker; 

(6) afford at least the same measure of culture as is 
now imparted; 

(c) inspire an ambition, amongst those who have the 
ability to do so, to proceed to higher institutions 
of learning; 

(d) serve to correlate school and home interests more 
closely so that there will be a mutual reaction. 

3. The enactment and rigid enforcement of compulsory 
attendance laws up to the age of fourteen. 

4. The exercise of a reasonable amount of compulsion in 
securing the attendance, for a limited number of hours 
each week, at approved day schools, of all up to the age 
of at least sixteen years. 

5. Recognition of the fact that the vast majority of the 
industrial workers do not enter a high school, but leave the 
elementary school at thirteen or fourteen years of age and 
receive no further systematic educational training. 

6. The provision of a type of school which shall train the 
boy and the girl from thirteen or fourteen to sixteen years 
of age, directly for the industries, and to see that financial 
considerations do not prevent the attendance of any who 
are desirous of taking advantage of the instruction offered. 



THE PROBLEM IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS 39 

7. The reorganization and revitalization of evening in- 
dustrial continuation schools for the purpose of giving defi- 
nite and pertinent instruction to those engaged in the 
industries during the day, and the making of such arrange- 
ments that the conditions of their labor will permit their 
attendance at the schools provided. 

8. The coordination of all parts of the educational sys- 
tem from the kindergarten to the university, so that every 
individual may be able to obtain that type of education, 
both in content and extent, best suited to his needs and 
requirements. 

9. The education of both the parent and the boy with 
a view of showing them that continued education is worth 
while, materially, morally, and spiritually, and the incul- 
cation of the idea that industrial occupations are to be 
desired and sought rather than shunned. 

10. The adaptation, rather than the adoption in their 
entirety, of the plans and schemes of foreign countries. 

11. The development of a rational system of apprentice- 
ship in all industries to which it can be economically and 
beneficially applied. 

12. The provision of a measure of expert guidance so 
that an intelligent and wise choice of an occupation may 
be made. 



PART II 
THE METHODS 



Ill 



THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND THEIR 
REVITALIZATION 

In view of the large expenditures previously mentioned, it 
is not unfair to regard the schools as a business concern, in 
which certain sums of money have been invested, and from 
which the investors (in this case the community at large) 
have a perfect and undeniable right to expect adequate 
returns. In the management of an ordinary business many 
economic tests are applied which cannot, from the nature 
of the case, be applied to the schools, but there are some 
which can and might be so applied with beneficial results. 
Amongst these are: — 

1. An estimate of the value of the finished product. 

2. Installation of an equipment best designed to turn 
out the product required. 

3. Use of the equipment to its maximum capacity, all the 
working hours of the day and all the working days of the 
year. 

What is the value of Uie finished product of the primary 
schools? Do these schools turn out any finished product? 
Were they designed to turn out any finished product? As 
a matter of fact, they were never intended to produce a 
finished product of any kind. Their purpose was, and still 
is, to form one stage of the educational progress from the 
kindergarten to the university. It is perhaps unfair and 
unreasonable, owing to the limited time available and the 
immaturity of the pupils, to expect anything of the nature 
of a completed article, but it is surely quite legitimate to 
ask that the schools should adequately prepare for the next 
step, and that that step should be one which the large 



44 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

majority of the pupils are able and willing to take. In the 
present economic and social condition of the community 
the step available to the majority, after leaving the ele- 
mentary school, is not entry into higher institutions of 
learning. 

In the building of all new schools, particularly in towns 
and cities, the basements should be so arranged that they 
may be effectively used for various purposes, including 
those of industrial education. These purposes should be 
definitely determined before the building is erected. It is 
not generally wise to advocate the use of basement rooms 
for educational purposes. The prevalent impression is that 
a room in a cellar, absolutely unfit for the teaching of any 
other subject, is good enough for a shop. This has done 
something to make the average boy look upon practical 
industry with contempt, and as something to be avoided 
if possible. But it is essential that the whole of an expensive 
building shall be economically used, and when planned for 
a definite purpose, which is previously determined, all the 
conditions required can be secured as easily in the basement 
as in any other part of the building. Of course in this plan- 
ning the men who are to teach in the rooms and who know 
the essential requirements should be consulted. The ordi- 
nary architect's idea of suitable classroom and workshop 
accommodation is not generally reliable. 

Every school should have an assembly room that could 
be used not only for day-school purposes but for evening 
lectures, entertainments, and other social functions. This 
room should be provided with an optical lantern and an 
opaque screen. If the room have shutters or opaque blinds 
it may be used for illustrated lessons in geography, history, 
and many other subjects in the daytime as well as in the 
evening. For evening use it is a decided advantage to have 
an entry directly from the street into the lecture room, 
in order that the remainder of the building may be kept 
closed, if necessary. 



REVITALIZATION OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 45 

The building should be open every night in the week and 
be made a real educational and social centre for the whole 
neighborhood. A gymnasium is also a useful feature of 
the equipment, and if the classrooms are fitted with mov- 
able furniture the purposes to which the whole building 
may be put will be largely increased. A study-room for 
those whose home surroundings are not conducive to quiet 
work has in many cases proved a desirable addition. Dur- 
ing the long summer vacations when the schools are usually 
closed, vacation schools might be held. Many teachers 
would be glad to engage in this form of work. Continua- 
tion sessions for those children who failed to secure pro- 
motion in the day schools have proved most successful 
in some districts. If plans of this character were adopted, 
much greater returns would be obtained from the sums 
invested. 

In view of the large numbers leaving the elementary 
schools at or before the completion of the course, and the 
economic folly of sacrificing the interests of the eighty per 
cent to those of the twenty per cent who proceed to the sec- 
ondary schools, it becomes proper to inquire how the edu- 
cation given can be made more directly beneficial to the 
greater number. The dominant life of the people should be 
the basis of the whole organization. If the schools cannot 
be managed so as to give equal opportunities to all, then, 
according to all principles of democracy, they should be so 
organized as to give adequate opportunity to the major- 
ity. This can really be done without in the least sacrificing 
the interests of the minority. The measures called for by 
the existing situation are: — 

1. Reorganization of the course of study with the object 
of giving to it a direct industrial trend, and a decided in- 
dustrial bent to the mind of the boy. 

The very word "industrial" is suggestive of work, but 
school and work are not at present synonymous terms. 
The atmosphere of the school discourages work. Every 



46 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

subject taught and the methods adopted are carefully 
designed and framed to remove all difficulties. As long ago 
as 1889 the following passage occurred in an educational 
magazine, and the situation has not materially changed 
since: — 

Even the very branches of the oid-f ashioned school days are now 
sweetened (?) to the mental appetite by titles that savor strongly 
of Mother Goose and the days of baby talk. Arithmetic is now 
"number work"; geography, "place lessons"; grammar, "lan- 
guage lessons'* or "ear culture"; spelling, "talking with a pen- 
cil"; reading, "what does the story say?" or "sentence pictur- 
ing " or " talking through the eye gate." The road to knowledge is 
no longer rocky and uneven, it is boulevarded in the highest style 
of the art. In short, the whole art of teaching in the public schools 
is "wheedling children into knowledge without their knowing 
it," bringing everything ready-made to the mind, sugar-coating 
every difficulty, turning the teacher into a variety show of "sound- 
ing brass and tinkling cymbal," and pleasing the child with a rattle 
or tickling him with a splint. The psychologizing philosophers 
who are responsible for such stufif in the public schools ought to 
learn at once that the human brain also works out of school, and 
that many things now taught (?) therein are sure to be learned by 
the education of the home, the street, the playground, by associa- 
tion and by contact with men and outside things. To spend time 
over matters in school, which, when the school gives right habits 
of work, are sure to be learned out of school, is sheer folly, a frit- 
tering of energy, a sheer waste of time. These men of hobbies 
ought also to know that when the principle of making easy and 
interesting is pushed to the length of not requiring pupils to learn 
anything but what has been made easy and interesting, one of the 
chief objects of education is sacrificed. And furthermore the new 
system of teaching, as it seems to me, is training up a race of men 
who will be incapable of doing anything which is disagreeable to 
them. The sooner such methods are swept out of the schools the 
sooner will the latter regain their place in the public regard and 
confidence. 

Of course in all this there is gross exaggeration, but it 
contains elements of truth and appropriateness which we 
shall do well not to ignore. 
The work done in the elementary schools is governed 



REVITALIZATION OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 47 

very largely by the time at the disposal of the teacher, but 
theorists in education seem to have lost all idea of the 
limited time available and have argued as though that time 
were unlimited. That the time is limited is true, but if the 
curriculum were modified and reorganized, this limited time 
could be considerably extended. With a curriculum hygien- 
ically, logically, and educationally planned, an extension of 
the school day would work no hardship to the children in 
the last four grades. Are more than two months' holidays 
really necessary? At present it seems to be nine months' 
rush and three months' rust. With properly ventilated 
and cooled rooms and a curriculum of the right kind, there 
would be far less danger to health and general morale in 
conducting the school continuously than is incurred in the 
practice of allowing children to run wild for two months 
with generally very little control. 

Besides the loss of actual time, every teacher knows, 
whether she will admit it or not, that it takes from two 
weeks to two months to bring the pupils back to the ed- 
ucational condition in which they were when the schools 
closed for vacation. The educational loss that occurs during 
this prolonged vacation probably accounts in a very large 
measure for the general complaint of each grade teacher, 
that the work of the previous grade has been ill-prepared. 
I well remember the dread with which, as a teacher in 
England many years ago, I went back to school after vaca- 
tion (only one month) lest the government inspector, a per- 
son much to be dreaded in those days, should choose the 
first week after the reopening, for his annual inspection. 

Now let us take the various subjects in the school curric- 
ulum with the object of showing what is meant by giving 
to them an industrial trend. 

Certainly reading, writing, and arithmetic can be taught 
in such a way as to turn the thoughts of the child in a 
practical direction. 

Stories of manufactures, descriptions of the making of 



48 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

common objects with the use of which the children are 
familiar, the lives of inventors and scientists, as well as 
accounts of the rise of various industries, could all be used 
after the third or fourth grade, and the art of reading as 
well taught by them as by the scraps and excerpts now 
generally in vogue. 

While the average type of newspaper can hardly be ad- 
vocated for general school use, why should there not be 
published in every State or Province a school newspaper 
once a week. This might treat of current events, matters 
of State and city government, educational affairs, healthy 
amusements, and a number of other things that boys and 
girls get in an objectionable form from the ordinary news- 
paper. One sheet of this paper might be devoted to purely 
local affairs. In the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades 
extracts from Ruskin, Morris, and the other great in- 
dustrial authors would prove of service in this connec- 
tion. 

Writing consists of two parts, penmanship and composi- 
tion. The former will continue to be taught (where it is 
taught) in the traditional way, but the old copybook max- 
ims might well be replaced by industrial ones which would 
teach the same moral truths. In teaching composition 
and essay-writing, the field of industry offers unlimited 
opportunity. Composition should always be written out 
of the fullness of knowledge, and while the aesthetic and 
beautiful ought by no means to be ignored, industrial 
subjects should be given prominence. There is as much 
beauty in a well-designed and constructed building as in a 
gorgeous sunset, though it is of a different character and 
we have not been trained to see it. 

There would not be much harm done if all formal gram- 
mar in the elementary school were abolished and the 
subject taught entirely through composition; visits to fac- 
tories, descriptions of manufacturing processes, the great 
stores, shops, and machines, the use of tools and how to 



REVITALIZATION OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 49 

make things, afford better subjects for composition than 
many of those usually given. 

All arithmetic should be taught as graphically as pos- 
sible, and in view of the competition and struggle of modern 
industry few subjects of school instruction have more direct 
bearing on the future career of all children than the art of 
calculation. It is he who is quickest and most expert in 
this respect, whether in the market, workshop, warehouse, 
or oflice, that has the greatest prospect of success, and 
though " ready reckoners " are common, yet the art of rapid 
calculation is indispensable. 

We are, of course, reminded here that our future lawyers, 
doctors, and ministers study mathematics for intellectual 
culture, but we cannot help thinking that some of them 
might well have a little less mathematics and a little more 
training in the art of lucid expression and public speak- 
ing. 

The French Revolution was responsible for many things 
both good and bad, but one of the greatest benefits ever 
conferred upon the French people was the abolition of the 
old monetary system and weights and measures, and the 
introduction of the present metric system, which has done 
much to facilitate trade and commerce, and to simplify 
arithmetical calculations, thus saving a vast amount of 
time and money. No Frenchman would think of restoring 
to the school curriculum the discarded system, in order to 
give additional practice to the child in arithmetical calcu- 
lation. 

In our schools we could do quite well with a less amount 
of complex and continued fractions, circulating decimals, 
puzzles, catches, and other academic problems, never met 
with outside the classroom and the arithmetic book. In 
place of these we might have more questions and prob- 
lems framed in the language and phraseology of the market, 
the shop, and industry in general, such as current prices 
of goods, making out estimates for work (current rate of 



60 rNTDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

wages), earnings of workmen and tradesmen, fluctuations in 
wages, etc. 

As a practical example of what is meant, take the "Lud- 
low Textile Arithmetic," a volume of 122 pages. In this 
work every problem has a direct application in the mill, 
mill terms are used, and much information is given relating 
to mill processes and materials; but with all this, arith- 
metic is taught, and at least as much culture and mental 
training are obtained by this method as by using problems 
that have no life connection. A manual of this character 
could be prepared for each trade or group of trades, and a 
public school arithmetic might contain a selection from 
each. This book may be considered as marking an epoch 
in the teaching of arithmetic for practical purposes. It 
treats arithmetic industrially, while at the same time retain- 
ing all the mental gymnastics that are really necessary. 
Good as the authors of the book have made it, they have 
not been able to rid themselves entirely of the baneful influ- 
ence of academic tradition, for they state in their preface 
that " fractions have been treated in detail, although they 
are used to a limited extent in the mills." 

When science is taken it should be industrial. Chemis- 
try should be related to agriculture, the manufactures, and 
the activities of the household; physics and mechanics to 
movements of machines, mechanical motions; electricity 
applied to practical purposes; and drawing to every form 
of industry in which it is used. 

We are told by the culturists that the formal aim in 
education should be considered more important than the 
material aim. There are many university graduates who 
are comparative failures in business and industry and many 
cases of learned men who are as ignorant as babes in the 
practical affairs of life. I am acquainted with a very esti- 
mable man who holds an M.A. degree from a world-famed 
university, and who is learned in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, 
and all the "ologies." He will sit wrapped in his books, let 



REVITALIZATION OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 51 

the fire die out, wonder why he is cold, and yet not have the 
practical sense to get up and put coal on. 

Take next the teaching of geography. Much of what is 
taught at present is "useless ballast." Why do we require 
information about all the rivers and their tributaries.'^ If 
ever in practical life we mention rivers, it is either when 
they are navigable, and thus of use to industry, or cause 
trouble and danger by floods. The bulk of the geography 
required for use is mercantile, and attention might be con- 
centrated on that. Natural products, places from which 
they come and to which they go, ports and harbors, these 
are matters of interest and of practical importance. Sup- 
pose we make more of the great railways and methods of 
transportation. It is not too much to say that all the geo- 
graphy ever required for practical purposes can be logic- 
ally and scientifically evolved from the great question of 
transportation. 

As a rational method of teaching history applied to a 
specific industry, take that adopted in the school of the 
Ludlow Manufacturing Company, Ludlow, Massachusetts. 
This is a school situated in a small town which is devoted 
almost entirely to the prosecution of the textile industry. 
The history taught is evolved from the work carried on 
in the mills. The following are some of the headings under 
which the instruction is given: the methods of clothing 
adopted by savage races; the development of the industry 
including modern textile machinery and the steam engine; 
general industrial development in England and the United 
States; the home industry stage and the growth of the fac- 
tory system and a comparison of the factory acts of Eng- 
land and the United States. This is history of a most vital 
and intellectual character. 

The science is also definitely related to the work in the 
mill. In physics the pupils examine and grade fibres, use 
the calibrating scales, measure and weigh rove and yam, 
test the strength of fibres and make tests for moisture. 



52 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

From such experiments as these the public schools may 
learn much. 

In the poorer quarters of the large cities a number of the 
pupils are engaged in work of various kinds outside of 
school hours and during vacations. This work frequently 
offers an excellent method of approach for practical train- 
ing of a very intense kind. With reference to this Dean 
Davenport says: — 

Does a boy sell papers after school hours? Why should that 
fact not be officially known and recognized as a factor in his edu- 
cation? Why should he not report on it regularly — the number 
and kinds of papers sold, the place and the customers, whether 
regular or special, cost and profit, together with the disposal of 
the proceeds? 

The Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State 
of Nebraska has recently issued a letter to his school officers 
and teachers. In this he describes a plan which is being 
followed, with much success, in several of the schools in the 
State. The plan is based on the assumption that there 
should be an intimate connection between the work of the 
school and that of the home. He contends that the school 
should give credit for industrial work done in the home. 
The home duties and the amount of school credit given 
therefor in the Spring Valley School, a country district in 
Polk County, are these: — 

Building fire in the morning, five minutes; milking a cow, five 
minutes; cleaning out the barn, ten minutes; turning cream sep- 
arator, ten minutes; splitting and carrying in wood (twelve hours* 
supply), ten minutes; cleaning horse (each horse), ten minutes; 
gathering eggs, ten minutes; feeding chickens, five minutes; feed- 
ing pigs, horses, or cows, five minutes; churning butter, ten min- 
utes; making butter, ten minutes; blacking stove, five minutes; 
making and baking bread, one hour; making biscuits, ten min- 
utes; preparing breakfast for the family, thirty minutes; prepar- 
ing supper for the family, thirty minutes; washing and drying 
dishes (one meal), fifteen minutes; sweeping floor, five minutes; 
dusting furniture (rugs, etc., one room), five minutes; scrubbing 
floor, twenty minutes; making beds (must be made after school), 



REVITALIZATION OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 53 

each bed five minutes; washing, ironing, and starching clothes that 
are worn at school, each week, two hours; bathing, each bath, 
thirty minutes; arriving at school with clean hands, face, teeth, 
and nails, and with hair combed, ten minutes; practising music 
lesson for thirty minutes, ten minutes; retiring at or before nine 
o'clock, five minutes; bathing and dressing baby, ten minutes; 
sleeping with window boards in bed room, each night, five min- 
utes; other work not listed, reasonable credit. Prizes are given 
to the pupils earning the most credits. 

The conditions and rules of the contest are given below : — 

1. No pupil is obliged to enter the contest. 

2. Any pupil entering is free to discontinue at any time, but if 
any do so without good cause, all credits earned will be forfeited. 

3. The parent or guardian must send an itemized list (with sig- 
nature affixed) to the teacher each morning. This list must 
contain the record of the work each child has done daily. 

4. Each day the teacher will issue a credit voucher to the pupil. 
This voucher will state the total number of minutes credited 
to the pupil on that day for home work. 

; 5. At the close of the contest, pupils will return the vouchers 
to the teacher, the six pupils who have earned the greatest 
amount of time per the vouchers, receiving awards. 

6. The contest closes when the school term closes. 

7. Once each month the names of the six pupils who are at the 
head of the list will be published in the country papers. 

8. Ten per cent will be added to the final examination results of 
all pupils (except eighth graders) who enter and continue in 
the contest. 

9. When the pupil has earned credits to the amount of one day, 
by surrender of the credits and upon proper application to 
the teacher, he may be granted a holiday, provided that not 
more than one holiday may be granted to a pupil each month. 

10. Forfeitures — dropping out of contest without cause, all cred- 
its due; unexcused absence, all credits due; less than ninety 
per cent in deportment in one month, ten per cent off of all 
credits due. 

11. Awards — The three pupils having the highest credits, $3 
each; the three having second highest, $2 each. The amount 
awarded will be placed in a savings bank to the credit of the 
pupil winning it. The funds out of which the awards will be 
made are provided by the school district board, from the gen- 
eral school funds. 



54 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

Every child in the school (thirty-one in number) entered 
the contest and faithfully kept up the home work through- 
out the year. Here are two samples of reports as sent in 
and signed by the parents: — 

HENRY DAVIDSON, April 17. 1912. EVANGELINE JENNINGS, AprU 16. 1912. 

Min. Min. 



Milked cows 


20 


Prepared supper SO 


Curried horses 


10 


Washed and dried dishes 15 


Hunted eggs 


10 


Gathered the eggs 15 


Fed chickens 


10 


Fed the chickens 5 


Fed pigs 


10 


Put separator together 10 


Fed horses 


10 


Turned separator 10 


Fed cows 


10 


Made one bed 5 


Cut wood 


10 


Cleaned my teeth 10 


To bed before 9 


5 


Retired before 9 5 




95 


105 


\ (Signed) Mrs. 


Davidson. 


(Signed) Mas. Jennings. 



The parents are enthusiastic over the results. They, the 
teacher, and the pupils are working together as a unit, and 
here at least the problem of an intimate correlation between 
the school and the home seems to have been solved. The 
teacher, Mr. O'Reilly, says: — 

This contest plan ought to be contagious, for it is the best thing 
I have ever tried in the way of getting the children completely in 
sympathy with both school and home duties. It is not my inten- 
tion to give full credit for time necessarily spent in home duties. 
I have explained to the children that it is best to go out into the 
world expecting, if necessary, to give more than they get. I am 
planning my forfeitures with the good of the school in view. The 
plan is an agreement between the pupil and myself. If he fails to 
live up to his part of it, he learns that this failure works a real 
hardship upon him. Perhaps I am teaching some practical law 
here. The plan of awards has started them upon a commercial 
future and has resulted in my having to tell them all about savings 
accounts. The plan is going without a hitch. 

2. We have now dealt with the reorganization of the 
elementary school curriculum, with special reference to the 
methods of treating the various subjects. The next step 



REVITALIZATION OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 55 

called for is the introduction of more handwork of a vital 
and definite character. This should not be restricted to 
grades seven and eight, but, commencing with grade one 
should permeate the whole organization. W. E. Roberts, 
in the "Manual Training Magazine," aptly states the case 
as follows: — 

One of the most surprising facts in connection with the history 
of education is the almost universal failure of educators to recog- 
nize the significance of activity as a factor in educational work. 
Three truths incident to human advancement stand out with per- 
fect distinctness: First, that the progress of civilization has paral- 
leled the development of certain activities or occupations in which 
hand expression is the dominant factor; second, that the signifi- 
cant effective advance of society to-day is expressed very largely 
in terms of action — through mentally directed bodily activity; 
and third, that the natural tendency of the child is to express 
himself concretely — by doing. And yet, despite these truths, 
our public school courses and methods fail almost universally to 
recognize the great factor of activity in the development of the 
child. 

Activity should have an important place in the work of the 
schools, not as a separate course added to, and apart from, other 
subjects, as drawing and manual training have largely been, but 
as the unifying element, the basis of other school work. The term 
** activity" also should have a broader significance than that 
which comes within the confines of the occupational work of the 
schools alone. The actual life of the child should be brought into 
the service of the schools, and every day of the pupil's life, in 
school and out, should naturally present problems, the solution 
of which will demand a knowledge of what is essential in the 
so-called academic subjects. School work will thus be vitalized, 
for the pupil will find knowledge desirable because immediately 
necessary to success in affairs that appeal to his interests. 

3. The school library lists should be revised so as to 
include stories of industrial, agricultural, and commercial 
life, lives of inventors and the history of their inventions, 
and the thousand and one things about the practical life 
around them that boys and girls will be the better for know- 
ing. Of course, weshall be told that a reading book exists 



66 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

for the purpose of teaching pupils to read and not for the 
purpose of giving them information; but if reading is taught 
properly, the matter read will be understood, and during 
the process much information will be absorbed, and why 
should not the information thus gained relate directly to 
the life to be lived and worked ? 

4. Systematic instruction relating to the character, 
scope, purpose, and opportunities of the various trades and 
industries should be given in the higher grades. 

5. Expert advice and assistance should be available at 
the close of the elementary school course regarding the de- 
sirability of continued education or the choice of a trade. 
If properly treated, no question can be made of more vital 
interest to a boy than the means by which his livelihood is 
to be secured. 

6. Visits should be paid, under proper direction, to 
local factories and industries. These industries should be 
previously described, in order to prevent aimless and pur- 
poseless wandering. The observations made might well be 
used afterwards as the foundation on which composition 
exercises are to be written. 

7. During the last year of the course careful inspection 
of any trade or industrial schools in the neighborhood should 
be made and the advantages of attendance at such schools 
pointed out. This is the plan followed in Milwaukee in 
connection with its School of Trades. Illustrated pam- 
phlets were prepared and distributed. The seventh and 
eighth grades of forty-two separate district schools visited 
the School of Trades on certain specified days. The visit 
was made thoroughly and systematically. Every boy now 
knows what the school has to offer him, and he also has 
information which will enable him to make an intelligent 
choice either of a trade or a continuation school. 

8. Permission should be granted to local authorities to 
modify the curriculum in order the better to adapt it to 
local needs and requirements. Uniformity has its dangers 



REVITALIZATION OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 57 

as well as its advantages. This, of course, should be 
done under the direct supervision of State or Provincial 
officers. 

9. More visual instruction should be given by the aid of 
the stereopticon. One striking feature of the American 
town to-day is the ubiquity of the moving-picture show, 
and from its popularity and success we can surely take a 
lesson. This form of amusement is here to stay, and, instead 
of agitating against its baneful influence, efforts should be 
made to capture it for educational purposes. The interior 
workings of the factory, manufacturing processes, the 
working of great government departments, natural history, 
travel, historic and current events, are all fit subjects for 
use in this connection. 

10. There should be adopted an accurate system of vital 
statistics which would have every child accounted for, his 
abilities charted, and other necessary information recorded. 
This would enable each succeeding teacher to render the 
best service, based on an individual knowledge of each 
pupil. 

If new plans of the above character be adopted, attention 
will have to be given to their development in the institu- 
tions for training teachers, and serious efforts must be put 
forth towards securing more male teachers. This last is 
primarily a question of the salaries paid. As long as the 
opportunities in business life are so great, and the salaries 
so much higher than those that can be obtained in the teach- 
ing profession, so long will the supply of male teachers be 
deficient, and the teaching profession be used as a step- 
ping stone to more highly paid occupations. Time for the 
adoption of the new methods in the normal schools may 
be obtained by omitting much of the psychology, child 
study, and the history of education now imposed and 
for which the majority of the embryo teachers find very 
little use. 

If the primary schools were revitalized somewhat along 



58 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

the lines indicated, they would be able to offer a training 
that would be of equal advantage to the boy who has to go 
to work immediately on leaving and to the boy who is able 
to take further instruction. A real foundation would be laid 
for further training, either vocational or cultural. A sound 
body of practical knowledge would be imparted. An indus- 
trial bias would be developed and an intimate relationship 
established between the school and the affairs of practical 
life, that would be beneficial both to the schools and to the 
pupils. 

Let us now consider briefly the question of compulsion. 
It has already been pointed out that the present laws are 
not enforced. The test of a law is its execution, and no mat- 
ter how theoretically perfect the laws on the statute book 
may be, that nation is uncivilized and without law if those 
laws are not carried out. The rigid and impartial admin- 
istration of the present laws would do much to extend the 
sphere of influence of the primary schools. Assuming a re- 
organization of the course, the adoption of new methods, 
and the enforcement of the present laws, then the raising of 
the school age is perfectly justifiable. The chief argument 
against this is the possibility of hardship to the parent and 
the home, owing to the loss of the earnings of the f ourteen- 
to sixteen-year-old boy or girl. This could probably be 
avoided or considerably minimized by the establishment, 
under proper safeguards, of a generous scheme of scholar- 
ships and maintenance allowances. Educational authori- 
ties are coming slowly, and the practical man of affairs 
rapidly, to the conclusion that to spend many millions on 
primary education and then to lose all control of the child 
both mentally and morally, to cast him adrift, as it were, 
to sink or swim, is, from the viewpoint of economics, an in- 
tolerable, wasteful, and extravagant policy, and suicidal to 
the moral and intellectual life of the nation. 



IV 



MANUAL TRAINING: ITS SUCCESSES, ITS FAILURES, 
AND ITS REORGANIZATION IN RESPONSE TO 
PRESENT' CONDITIONS 

No treatment of the subject of "industrial education" 
could be considered as even partially complete without a 
close examination of what is known as the "manual train- 
ing" movement. The name is unfortunate for various rea- 
sons, but it is probably too well established to make a 
change either possible or desirable. There are many kinds 
of hand training, and unfortunately the possession of one 
kind of dexterity does not imply that of another. If this 
were so, then would cricket, basket-ball, tennis, etc., be 
most useful forms of manual training. No satisfactory 
definition of it has ever been given. To one teacher of 
the subject it means one thing and to another something 
entirely different. When men who have studied the sub- 
ject for years are at variance, how can it be expected that 
the ordinary individual, who takes only a casual interest in 
educational affairs, will have a clear conception of what the 
term connotes? 

The subject, like most other educational reforms, was 
introduced into the schools from the top — the manual 
training high schools, mechanic arts high schools, and 
technical high schools. These schools were originally 
expected to train the higher grades of industrial workers, 
and judged by this standard they have miserably failed. 
They have been a sop and a fraud as far as definite indus- 
trial training is concerned. They have been attended in 
the majority of cases by those who, in any event, would 
have proceeded to a high school and, therefore, their estab- 



60 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

lishment has not very materially increased the high school 
enrollment or affected the elementary school population. 

No opponent of these schools can deny that they have 
done good and valuable cultural work, but as a means to 
definite vocational and industrial training they have proved 
a bitter disappointment. Generally speaking, they have 
given all, or nearly all, the cultural and classical studies 
that have been offered in the ordinary high school, and 
have simply added work with hand and machine tools, and 
mechanical drawing, to the ordinary curriculum. Large 
sums have been spent on the most elaborate buildings and 
costly machinery, while the same practical results could 
have been accomphshed with an expenditure of less than 
half the money. 

From the manual training high school the subject forced 
its way into the elementary school between 1887 and 1890, 
and one of the greatest hindrances to its growth and exten- 
sion has been the exaggerated ideas that were formed as to 
the results to be expected from its introduction. Too much 
has been claimed and too much anticipated. When we 
review the energy that has been put into the propaganda, 
and the money that has been spent, the conclusion is forced 
upon us that a much more extensive adoption of manual 
training should have been the result. 

The subject has not been taken seriously by the people, 
who in the last analysis determine educational organiza- 
tion and practice. It cannot be denied that, properly 
taught and organized, manual training has a decided place 
in any educational system, and that that place cannot be 
filled by any other school subject hitherto devised. With 
a reorganized curriculum its function would become still 
more important. 

The time has now arrived when it will be the truest edu- 
cational and financial economy, and in the best interests of 
all concerned, to review the situation and attempt to dis- 
cover the comparative failure of this most important sub- 



MANUAL TRAINING 61 

ject to make a place for itself in every school system in the 
country. The subject is here to stay. Real educationists 
and industrial workers who have studied the matter closely 
and sympathetically are justifiably optimistic, but rational 
optimism never shuts its eyes to the truth and always 
welcomes any critical investigation undertaken with the 
object of showing the road to greater success. 

The famous Massachusetts Commission, in investigat- 
ing the subject of industrial education, did not consider it 
necessary to devote more than half a page in its Report to 
the subject of manual training. This is all the more remark- 
able when it is considered that Massachusetts is a state 
and Boston a city that together have done more to develop 
a rational system than probably any other area in the 
world. The Report says: — 

The wide indifference to manual training as a school subject may 
be due to the narrow views which have prevailed among its chief 
advocates. It has been urged as a cultural subject, mainly useful 
as a stimulus to other forms of intellectual effort — a sort of mus- 
tard relish, an appetizer — to be conducted without reference to 
any industrial end. It has been severed from real life as com- 
pletely as have the other school subjects. Thus it has come about 
that the overmastering influence of school traditions have brought 
into subjection both the drawing and manual work. 

The only consolation the manual training, advocate can 
obtain from this oft-quoted opinion is that manual train- 
ing is classed -with other school subjects and that all alike 
are accused of being "severed from real life." There is 
also a tacit admission that a relish was necessary to make 
the ordinary school subjects palatable. 

The arguments urged for the introduction of manual 
training were deliberately designed to satisfy labor organi- 
zations. It was loudly proclaimed that the subject had 
nothing to do with teaching a trade, that it had no connec- 
tion with industry, and that it would not predispose boys 
to enter mechanical pursuits. With the proposition that 



62 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

manual training does not, cannot, and should not attempt 
to teach a trade, we can all heartily agree, but the ideas that 
it has no connection with industry and that it will not 
predispose boys to enter mechanical pursuits, will not to- 
day find such ready acceptance. If manual training cannot 
be justified on the two latter grounds as well as on the purely 
cultural side, then it should have very little place in the 
training of boys and girls — the eighty or ninety per cent 
who get no further training than the elementary schools 
can give. Superintendent Maxwell, of New York, has 
said : — 

The attempt now being made in some quarters to separate 
manual training from industrial training will prove a dismal fail- 
ure. It is only through manual training that we are able to dis- 
cover those who have any aptitude for mechanical pursuits. 

Our industrial training should begin in the public schools. 
It is there, and there only, that the pupils can have given 
to them an industrial bias and bent, which will lead them to 
consider productive industry as a profitable career and to 
investigate the prospects that it has to offer them. It is 
there that the erroneous ideas they have regarding indus- 
try in general can be corrected, and if our industrial edu- 
cation is to have a solid foundation the effect of a sound 
scheme of manual training cannot be overestimated. 
Though Germany has developed its scheme of industrial 
education without manual training, it does not follow that 
we are compelled to do the same. Indeed, if we are to have 
a coordinated system suitable to our industrial conditions, 
we cannot ignore this part of it. The fact is *that we can 
retain and even increase all the cultural training that the 
most ardent advocates contend for, and at the same time 
make the subject give a direct help to the industrial devel- 
opment of the boy or girl. President Eliot has said, "If 
a man practice blacksmithing studiously or agriculture 
thoughtfully, he is getting culture." 

The foes of manual training have been those of its own 



MANUAL TRAINING 63 

educational household. It has had to fight its way in the 
face of bitter opposition. Educational traditions were out- 
raged, and therefore all those who had been reared on those 
traditions marshaled their forces, went forth valiantly to 
do battle, and in the majority of cases won the fight they 
waged. In many places manual training has been forced 
into the schools before public opinion was ripe for it, and 
as a consequence has received indifferent support and bare 
toleration. The idea that education could be given only 
through the classics long held sway : even mathematics and 
science were awarded tardy recognition; and it was really 
too much to expect that another subject would be allowed 
equal place with either classics or science. Owing largely 
to this academic opinion, that manual training was not an 
educational subject, it has had scant recognition in the 
public elementary schools and still less in the ordinary high 
school. 

Even in those places where the subject has been intro- 
duced, it has never been an integral part of the course. It 
has simply been regarded as an additional subject, and no 
connection has been established with the remainder of the 
curriculum. The grade teacher held aloof, and the manual 
training teacher placed himself on a pedestal and refused to 
have any connection either with other school subjects or 
practical industry. Jesse D. Burks, of the Philadelphia 
Bureau of Municipal Research, says: — 

With a few gratifying exceptions the hand work of the schools 
is a fungus growth on an otherwise ill-proportioned and mis- 
shapen curriculum, which needs not so much to be pruned and 
trained as to be uprooted and replaced by a more vigorous and 
more productive plant. 

The methods adopted have been in too many cases for- 
eign to the shop, and have been such that, if a boy used 
them in the shop, he would be at least reprimanded by the 
foreman. I have visited exhibitions where boys have been 
at work giving practical demonstrations of manual training. 



64 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

and have stood and listened to the comments of artisans 
and mechanics, and in the majority of cases these com- 
ments have been the reverse of favorable. Shop meth- 
ods can be adopted after a certain amount of preliminary 
work has been done, without detracting from the educa- 
tional and cultural value of the subject. 

The development of manual training has been rather 
peculiar. First, we had the type exercise, where the boy 
had to make a joint about which he knew nothing, and 
cared less. I have seen piles of these joints, so little thought 
of by the boy that he would not take the trouble to carry 
them home, and they were consigned to the furnace. Next 
we had the sloyd influence, which at least infused a certain 
amount of interest and inculcated the making of useful 
objects, though the mistake was made of supposing that the 
"system" consisted of the actual models made in Sweden, 
and that any departure therefrom would destroy the con- 
tinuity of the whole scheme. In addition to this, sloyd 
insisted upon accuracy (a variation of three millimetres 
from the drawing being suflicient to cause the rejection of a 
model), a lesson which is yet required in much of the work 
done. Then came the craze for "originality," "inventive- 
ness," "seK-expression "; and in the name of one or other of 
these we have had perpetrated objects which have caused 
derision amongst those who know good craftsmanship when 
they see it. It was thought, by allowing a boy to make 
something entirely beyond his executive capacity, that his 
"self-expression" would be developed, his "inventiveness" 
stimulated, and his "originality" encouraged. It did not 
at all matter that the joints gaped, that the angles were far 
from right angles, or that the object was ill-fitted to serve 
the purpose for which it was designed. This striving after 
" originality " reminds one very forcibly of Robinson Cru- 
soe's first attempt to make a boat. " I went to work upon 
that boat the most like a fool that ever man did who had 
any of his senses awake. I pleased myself with the design 



MANUAL TRAINING 65 

without determining whether I was ever able to undertake 
it." The tendency at the present time seems to be in the 
direction of large pieces of furniture, in many cases entirely 
beyond the capacity of the boy. In some instances the 
jointing and machining of large pieces is done at the mill, 
an entirely reprehensible proceeding. 

In the higher grades of the elementary school the work 
has been too much restricted to wood, and woodwork in the 
majority of cases has no more claim to monopolize atten- 
tion than plumbing or bricklaying, gasjBtting or tinsmith- 
ing. Whether regarded as a cultural subject, or as an in- 
dustrial subject, or, as it really is, a combination of both,as 
much cultural or industrial training can be obtained through 
the medium of a number of other materials as can be ac- 
quired from woodwork. Again the woodworking trades 
provide only about one tenth of the desirable openings in 
mechanical pursuits. 

Probably there is no more vital cause for the limited 
extension of manual training than the circumscribed abil- 
ity of the teachers employed. No reference here is in- 
tended to intellectual ability, which in nearly all cases is un- 
questionable, but simply to industrial skill and knowledge. 
Professor Frank M. Leavitt, in his book, "Examples of 
Industrial Education," says : — 

The fact is that educational authorities very early set up scho- 
lastic requirements for the teachers of the new subjects. Before a 
man could teach machine-shop work in a high school he had to 
pass an examination in English and American literature, algebra, 
demonstrative geometry, a foreign language, etc., etc. The result 
was that in time the work fell into the hands of men who were 
trained in the traditional school subjects, rather than in the prac- 
tical work which they were to teach. They knew a foreign lan- 
guage, imperfectly, but they knew little or nothing of the uni- 
versal language, drawing. They knew demonstrative geometry, 
but little descriptive or applied geometry. They knew something 
of algebra, but they never by any possible chance made use of it 
in the shop, and were of course entirely unfamiliar with shop 
formulae. To-day the manual training work is condemned by the 



66 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

"public," the manufacturers, and the labor leaders as being use- 
less as industrial training and the teachers as being incapable of 
conducting or of understanding the purpose of real industrial 
schools. While much of the criticism is unjust, the lesson is 
evident. 

The ideal teacher of this subject is a man (not a woman) 
who possesses academic knowledge, teaching ability, and 
mechanical skill, and it is very difficult to say which of the 
three is most important. The educationist stresses the 
academic and intellectual side, while the mechanic stresses 
the industrial,' and largely ignores the intellectual. The 
real solution, as usual, probably lies between the two. In 
reference to this question the Report of the American Fed- 
eration of Labor says, "Experience has shown that manual 
training school teachers without actual trade experience 
cannot successfully solve this great problem." It is only fair 
to point out here that all the progressives in the ranks of 
the manual training teachers fully recognize this and are 
taking steps to acquire this shop experience, which is now 
considered vitally necessary. 

Convinced of the importance of securing the right kind 
of teacher, the importance of providing teachers for indus- 
trial schools, and the advantage of industrial experience 
to manual training teachers, the Province of Ontario has 
recently drafted new regulations to accomplish these ends. 
These provide — 

1. One year's training at a normal school in the art and 
science of teaching. 

2. One year's training in the Macdonald Institute, 
Guelph, in the practice of manual training. 

At the conclusion of this two years' course, an interim 
certificate is granted which is valid for two years. This is 
made permanent on the conclusion of two years' satisfac- 
tory service in one of the schools of the Provincial system 
and the submission of reliable evidence of two months' 
employment in an approved shop. The certificate thus 



MANUAL TRAINING 67 

granted is known as an "ordinary" certificate. It may be 
raised to a "specialist" certificate after twelve months* 
employment in an actual shop. 

It has been said that the advocates of temperance have 
done more injury to their own cause, by their intemper- 
ate advocacy, than has been done by their opponents, and 
probably this is true to some extent with regard to manual 
training. We have made exaggerated claims for it, and 
these claims have failed to materialize, though it is prob- 
able that the majority of them would have been justified 
by the results had the conditions been different. We have 
urged that it would keep boys longer in school. Has this 
been the case generally? What boy who hates books and 
ordinary school subjects will tolerate twenty-four hours' 
work a week at them for the sake of getting an hour and a 
half at manual training? Is it reasonable to expect it?^ It 
has been claimed that manual training will help every 
other subject in the school curriculum. So it will if given 
an opportunity, but when the boy leaves the "centre," 
that is the last he hears of the subject for another week. In 
a number of places what is known as the "centre system" 
is adopted, that is, a room is equipped in some convenient 
school and the pupils from various schools in the vicinity 
attend at certain specified hours. Every school should 
have its own manual training shop, which should be suflB- 
ciently used to justify the expense of fitting. This would 
avoid the loss of time in going from school to shop. 

The ordinary grade teacher has taken little interest in 
the work, and the pupils themselves have had no encour- 
agement to regard it seriously. I know of one instance 
where manual training and household science have been 
established for four years and the principal of the school 
has never been inside either room. As a consequence, not- 
withstanding the ability of the teachers in this particular 
case, the pupils do not look upon the work as being of much 
value, or as playing any decided part in their school stud- 



68 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

ies. Manual training requires that more time be devoted to 
it. It should also be placed on an equal footing with other 
school subjects. If this cannot be done, we must not expect 
the greatest results from its limited adoption. The cost 
ought not to be regarded as expenditure, but as an invest- 
ment which is calculated to give large returns both educa- 
tionally and industrially. 

One of the most serious defects in our manual training 
as at present conducted is that the boy does not get any 
adequate idea of the value of time and material. These 
factors in the majority of cases never enter into the calcula- 
tions of the manual training room. A prominent manufac- 
turer said recently : " My harshest criticism of our present 
manual training work in our public schools is that the boys 
and girls do not have a proper appreciation of the value of 
time and the cost of material. I will take a boy into my 
shops and will make him do twice as much as you can make 
him do in the same length of time." 

While there is a large amount of truth in this, there is 
still something to be said on the other side. The conditions 
are essentially different. In the shop the boy does not feel 
sure of his place. Unless the quality of his work be high 
enough and the output sulBScient, he is well aware that 
he risks dismissal, and that another is ready and willing 
to step into his place. In the shop the operations, owing 
to frequence of performance, tend to become automatic 
and lead to speed. In the school as soon as a boy can do 
one thing well he is given a new problem. But after every- 
thing is said that can be said, we all know that there is 
more or less waste both in time and material, and our 
efforts should be directed towards eliminating it. 

In Pueblo, California, a cost-check was handed to each 
boy on the commencement of his work. The various grades 
had different values assigned to their work, ranging from 
seven to fifteen cents per hour. The boys were found eager 
to discover all the facts relating to any piece of work in 



MANUAL TRAINING 



69 



hand, and when the cost of an article that could be bought 
for one dollar was found to run up to three or four dollars, 
the boy did not 
need to be told 
that there was 
something wrong. 
Of course, objec- 
tion will be taken 
to this plan on the 
ground that too 
much is made of 
dollars and cents, 
and that it is cal- 
culated to ruin the 
high ideals that 
should be the sole 
basis of the work. 
But the sooner 
some of the so- 
called ideals of 
manual training 
are allowed to go 
by the board and 
the work is brought 
into actual rela- 
tion to practical 
life, the better it 
will be for all con- 
cerned. The stand- 
ard of cost is the 
one that will ap- 
peal to the boy 
most of all. He 
hears about it 
every day and knows thoroughly well what it means. 
There is no danger of the work suffering from the adop- 





^ 


Cost Check 




Job Gun Cabinet 




Material 




Wood. Kind Oak 


Cost 


No. feet in job 38 




No. feet spoiled 1 




Price per tool I U cost of wood 


3.90 


Brass for nincfes... 


40 


Lock •- 


50 
2.10 


Felt for lining .^ 


Stain Varnish — glass 


1.15 


Time 




Date begun 9-9-07. 




Date finished 20-12-07. 




Extra hours IlHI IIIII I 




Total hours 77 




Wage per hour 1 5 




Cost of time 


11.55 


F Total 


19.60 


Check H, M. H. 




Name ^ay MtTZ, 




School Central 




Grade 9. 





70 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

tion of some such plan. By this means there will be re- 
moved a glaring economic defect that is causing much 
adverse criticism from practical men. A copy of the check 
referred to is found on the preceding page. 

There is need also in the manual training room of more 
cooperative or community work. As an illustration of 
what is meant, take the method as worked out in a Toronto 
"centre." Fifteen classes, from various public schools in 
the neighborhood, attend this particular centre each week. 
Ten of these classes receive a weekly lesson of one and 
a half hours and five one of two hours. Ten classes were 
chosen, and each class was to make a " Morris " chair. The 
idea was cooperation. The teacher felt that the training the 
boys were receiving along the lines of getting along with 
their fellows and working harmoniously with them, upon 
which the success of the modern workman so largely de- 
pends, was not sufl5ciently stressed. He also felt that the 
individual work was tending largely to encourage selfish- 
ness. Each class chose its own foreman, and the chair, 
when made, was to be presented to the principal of the 
school from which the class came. Plans were discussed, 
the drawings made, and the wood chosen and purchased 
by the boys. The various parts were allotted to different 
boys. When these were completed, they were assembled 
and built into the finished chair. 

Another example of the same method follows. An even- 
ing school in the Province of Ontario was being equipped, 
and fifty drawing-tables were required for the draughting- 
room. The type of table was determined, the drawings and 
blue-prints made, and the whole of the work done by shop 
methods in the evening woodworking class. While this was 
being done, temporary tables and trestles were used in the 
draughting-room. Methods of this character are capable of 
almost unlimited development, and would do much to give 
an accurate knowledge of the industries and the conditions 
under which they are carried on. 



MANUAL TRAINING 71 

Modified shop methods must be introduced into the 
schools. Visits to factories and various industries might be 
made. As far as possible the industries should be repro- 
duced in the classroom and every opportunity taken ad- 
vantage of to relate the work closely to the industries of the 
locality. 

As the failure of manual training from the industrial 
point of view has largely given rise to the present agitation 
for industrial education, so that agitation has reacted on 
the practice of manual training. Teachers are gradually 
changing their attitude and seeking to obtain that actual 
shop experience which is proving to be so necessary. In- 
dustrial methods are being adopted, correct technique 
being insisted upon, and a silent revolution is in course 
of operation. The manual training of to-day is very dif- 
ferent from that of even five years ago, and in another 
five years it will probably be scarcely recognizable for the 
same subject. 

The subject corresponding to manual training that has 
been brought into the curriculum for girls is household sci- 
ence. Housekeeping to-day is recognized as an industry in 
which large numbers of women are engaged. For this rea- 
son the whole, and not a fractional part of it, should be 
taught in our schools. Owing to various limitations, ele- 
mentary school household science consists almost entirely 
of cookery, but we do not live in the kitchen. The bedroom, 
the bathroom, the dining-room, and the living-room should 
also receive due attention; and therefore the kitchen should 
not be regarded as the unit of equipment. 

It still remains for some progressive Board of Education 
to show what can be done in the teaching of girls by making 
provision for the larger subject of "housewifery," as it is 
called in the English schools, by furnishing a model house 
or flat, in which every department of household work can 
be demonstrated and taught. 

Let us take a typical case of this plan for teaching 



72 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

housewifery. The Manchester (England) Education Com- 
mittee owned two cottages near one of the schools. These 
two houses have been simply furnished and equipped in 
a style suitable for a working-man's home. The teacher 
lives in one of the houses, and classes consisting of twelve 
girls are taught at one time. 

All the practical details of household management are 
dealt with, such as the buying and cooking of food, bread- 
making, washing, mangling and ironing, cleaning, scrub- 
bing, dusting. By means of this provision, about one hun- 
dred and twenty girls will have the benefit of practical 
training, and in time there are to be given simple lessons in 
hygiene and the tending and feeding of young children. To 
meet the requirements of the English Education Depart- 
ment, it is necessary that each girl should have previously 
gone through a course of lessons in cookery and laundry 
work. 

If the last six months of a girl's life at school could be 
spent at such a centre, in training for the duties of keep- 
ing the home, there can be no question but that a vast 
improvement would be effected in the comfort and econ- 
omy of home life, and such provision might reasonably 
be expected to develop a decided tendency to prolong the 
school life of the girl. The need of training for house- 
keeping and home-making is evident on all hands. If men 
started out with as little knowledge of their business affairs 
as does the average girl of housekeeping, business failures 
would be chronicled every day by the score instead of the 
occasional few as now. In the two excellent schools for 
the training of household science teachers in the Province 
of Ontario — Macdonald Institute, Guelph, and the Lillian 
Massey School at the University of Toronto — a complete 
apartment or flat is included as part of the equipment, 
and the prospective teacher gets the kind of training above 
referred to. 

In the actual teaching of cookery itself, more practical 



MANUAL TRAINING 7S 

methods might be adopted. A laundress was asked by her 
mistress, "Does your daughter learn much in cooking- 
school? " "Sure, then, that public school cooking is nothing 
but child's play at all, miss; me girl she makes a little loaf 
o' bread no bigger than me fist, an' a teaspoonful o' plum 
puddin', an' she bakes a quar-r-ter o' a potato. It makes 
me laugh, that does." Of course, this criticism is very much 
overdrawn, but it contains an element of truth which we 
shall be wise not to ignore. 

The most frequent criticism I hear is this : " Your house- 
hold science is all right as far as it goes, but it does not go 
far enough. My girl can cook a bit of this or that, but when 
my wife is sick and my daughter has to attend to the house 
and get a complete meal, she gets all tangled up." Assum- 
ing that the main business of a cooking-school is to teach 
how to cook, which assumption, by the way, all are not 
willing to admit, it seems that much more attention to the 
preparation of the complete meal is required, or the time, 
money, and energy spent on the subject will be largely 
wasted, as far as practical housekeeping results are con- 
cerned. Of course, the answer to all that has been said will 
be that the time allowed is not nearly sufficient to permit 
of this being done, and the answer is to a very great extent 
justifiable. In some cases the teacher has fifteen different 
classes a week and the same lesson is repeated the same 
number of times, and as a rule vitality is lost each time 
it is given after the third or fourth. 

We must admit that both manual training and house- 
hold science are handicapped and the time limited, but 
then we have to ask ourselves whether the most efficient use 
is being made of the time that is grudgingly given to us. To 
this question, after a careful review of the methods now in 
vogue, one cannot always answer in the affirmative. 

The measures that seem to be needed here are: — 

1. The frank admission by all manual training advocates 
that the subject has a decided and distinct industrial value. 



74 mDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

which is at least as great as the cultural value, in the train- 
ing of the boy or the girl. 

2. A reawakening of public sentiment and a revival of 
popular interest in the subject on the above grounds. 

3. The employment of teachers who, in addition to the 
widest professional and academic training possible, have 
above all an accurate working knowledge of shop condi- 
tions, requirements, and methods. 

4. The employment of these shop methods in the manual 
training room whenever that is possible without sacrificing 
the educational interests of the pupils. 

5. The adoption of various measures calculated to bring 
about a closer correlation between the industrial work of 
the home and that of the school. 

6. The devotion of much more time and attention to 
manual training, household science, and drawing of an 
intensely practical kind, with a direct local and industrial 
application. 



SOME NEW TYPES OF SCHOOLS, AND PRINCIPLES 
UNDERLYING THEIR ORGANIZATION AND MAN- 
AGEMENT 

Any reform of, or additions to, our educational systems 
must take that which already exists, as the basis on which 
to build. It would be the height of economic folly and 
a foredoomed failure to attempt to establish new types 
of schools and ignore the experience and achievements of 
the past. 

In previous chapters the necessity for a revitalization of 
the public school curriculum and a change of viewpoint — 
the industrial rather than the academic — has been pointed 
out. Assuming that these changes, which reially mean a 
modernizing of the system, will be gradually carried out, 
it is in order to inquire what new types of schools, if any, 
are required, in addition to those we already have, what 
principles should underlie their establishment, and what 
results we have a right to expect from them. 

The main purpose of all education should be to make a 
good citizen. This statement, of course, is a mere common- 
place, and has been repeated so often that it has almost lost 
its meaning. One essential feature of good citizenship has 
been entirely lost sight of and willfully ignored by educa- 
tional advocates. Before a man can become a good citizen 
he must have and use the ability to earn a living. Henry 
George has said, " Poverty is the Slough of Despond which 
Bunyan saw in his dream and into which good books may 
be tossed forever without result. To make people indus- 
trious, prudent, skillful, and intelligent, they must be re- 
lieved from want." Education, we are told, is to teach us 
how to live, not how to make a living; but it is a sheer 



76 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

impossibility for a man to learn how to live unless he can 
make a living for himself and those dependent on him. As 
long as we dwell on the ideal, ignore the actual, and willfully 
blind our eyes to the necessity of training for self-support, 
which in our modern civilization is facing the vast major- 
ity of our people, we are shirking the issue and not meet- 
ing the situation. This self-support is the first obligation 
of a citizen, and the absolutely necessary basis of a wider 
and more unselfish range of service. 

It has already been pointed out that at least eighty per 
cent of the boys and girls never proceed further in the edu- 
cational organization than the elementary school, and that 
between their leaving school and the time when they reach 
sixteen years of age, when they are generally admitted into 
productive industry, much educational loss is incurred. 

It is evident that the existing high schools which have 
been in operation for many years, do not meet the needs or 
requirements of this eighty per cent, and it becomes our 
duty to provide a type of education which will give just that 
instruction which is demanded by the economic conditions 
and probable future occupations of the large majority of 
our pupils. 

It is the prevailing fashion in most countries having a 
democratic form of government to decry any process of 
grading or sorting children, as it is believed that this would 
tend towards making and accentuating class distinctions. 
It is high time we ceased worshiping the fetish of equality. 
Our educational systems, democratic though they are said 
to be, are making these distinctions where they do not 
already exist and emphasizing them where they do. We 
have at least two castes, those who are of the elect and 
those who are not, i.e., those who can absorb the printed 
page and pass the prescribed examinations, and those who, 
for both mental and financial reasons, are not able to do so. 
Germany has classified her children and so has Switzerland. 
The former is an aristocracy and the latter a true demo- 



SOME NEW TYPES OF SCHOOLS 77 

cracy. Until we in America can learn their lessons, the 
waste of giving the wrong kind of education — an educa- 
tion not fitted to the circumstances of the child receiving 
it — will continue. 

In view of what has gone before, a new type of school is 
urgently needed. This would supplement and not replace 
any existing organization. If, as suggested by the State 
Commissioner of Education for New York, the present 
curriculum can be accomplished in one year less than at 
present, the school proposed could be entered at thirteen 
years of age, and it would thus provide a three-year course, 
which would carry the boy and giri up to the time they are 
generally admitted to the industrial ranks. 

The new school might be called a "general industrial 
school" for the first two years and a "special industrial 
school " for the third year. The work undertaken would be 
definitely related to the industries of the district, and for 
this reason it is dijQScult for any central body to outline with 
absolute definiteness the curriculum of such a school. The 
problem of industrial education is almost a separate one for 
every trade and for every locality. It is only the localizing 
of this work that will make it effective. In addition to the 
practical shop work taken in such a school, the subjects 
might be English, mathematics, science, drawing, indus- 
trial geography, and history. Every subject should be 
treated strictly from its industrial side, and for this reason 
the curriculum ought not to be drawn up entirely by the 
educational authorities. In this connection the assistance 
of industrial experts could very well be called in. 

An excellent example of a school closely approximating 
this type is the Rochester "Shop School.'* Its very name 
outrages the traditional idea of a school. The school "has 
for its aim the training of boys along general industrial 
lines and in the fundamental principles pertaining to cer- 
tain trades, but does not aim to teach a trade. It does 
aim to develop rapidity and efficiency in execution, so that 



78 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

those who go out with a diploma will be better fitted to 
enter their chosen trade than they would be under prevail- 
ing conditions." 

There are six courses now offered, — cabinet-making, 
carpentry, electricity, plumbing, architectural drawing, and 
machine design. Each course lasts for two years, and the 
school is open forty weeks in the year. Each course is 
divided as follows in hours per week: — 

Shop work 15 hours 

Shop mathematics 5 hours 

Drawing 5 hours 

English 2h hours 

Industrial history 1| hours 

Spellmg 1 hour 

Five hours' home work in mathematics and spelling are 
exacted each week, and the boys in the electrical course are 
obliged to spend three hours a week, in addition to the 
above time-table, on the theory of the subject. The daily 
sessions are from 8.30 to 3 p.m. The school is closed thus 
early in the afternoon in order that the boys may find 
outside work if necessary. 

Some schools that approach this type have largely fol- 
lowed the manual training plan of shop work, both in the 
method of treatment and in the subjects taught. Both 
these must be changed if these schools are to have a definite 
and precise industrial connection. The industrial method 
of treatment is required; subdivision of labor, length of 
time on the job, cost of material, wages awarded, disposal 
of the product, and a number of other trade practices must 
be brought into play. There is no reason why woodwork 
and metal-work should be the only forms of workshop 
practice offered, or why they should be offered at all unless 
specially demanded by the industries of the district. 

Consideration might well be given to the length of the 
school day. There is no valid reason why boys of fourteen 
years of age should not be required to work eight hours a 



SOME NEW TYPES OF SCHOOLS 79 

day, as in the shop. With the variety of work offered, this 
would entail no undue physical or mental strain. The usual 
two or three months* holiday is in need of considerable 
curtailment in schools of this character. The authorities of 
the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades say, 
"Although our school day is eight hours long, there is gen- 
erally excellent attention in both mechanical and academic 
departments, the happy combination of the two, leaving 
our young men fresh and bright at its close." 

A great hindrance to the progress of schools of this char- 
acter will be the tendency of boys to leave before they have 
completed the course on which they have entered. It 
would be a decided advantage to have steps taken, by legal 
measures if necessary, to discourage any employer taking 
into his shop a boy who thus leaves except under the most 
pressing circumstances, and labor unions might well refuse 
to admit to membership any boy who leaves, without ade- 
quate and justifiable cause, a school approved by them. 

In speaking of such a school, the Report of the American 
Federation of Labor, meeting in Toronto, November, 1909, 
says: — 

We favor the establishment of schools in connection with the 
public school system at which pupils between the ages of fourteen 
and sixteen may be taught the principles of the trades, not neces- 
sarily in separate buildings, but in separate schools adapted to 
this particular education, and by competent and trained teachers. 

The course of instruction in such a school should be English, 
mathematics, physics, chemistry, elementary mechanics, and 
drawing, with shop instruction for particular trades; and for each 
trade represented, the drawing, mathematics, physical and bio- 
logical science applicable to the trade, the history of that trade, 
and a sound system of economics, including and emphasizing the 
philosophy of collective bargaining. This will serve to prepare 
the pupils for more advanced subjects and in addition to disclose 
their capacity for a specific vocation. 

In order to keep such schools in close touch with the trades, 
there should be local advisory boards, including representatives of 
the industries, employers, and organized labor. 



80 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

We recommend that any technical education of the workers in 
trade and industry, being of public necessity, should be not a pri- 
vate but a public function, conducted by the public and at the 
public expense. 

After two years of such a general course organized with 
special reference to local requirements and with the cooper- 
ation of both educationists and industrialists, the boy, his 
parents, and his instructors would have some definite and 
reliable information and experience on which to base a 
decision regarding the occupation for which the boy is to 
be definitely trained. The last twelve months of the boy's 
course should be spent in the trade he has chosen, and this 
would render him of immediate value to an employer and 
would enable him to earn a living wage from the time of his 
entry into the shop. 

This is largely the plan followed in the Newton Inde- 
pendent Industrial School. On completion of the three 
years* course the boy is given a certificate indicating the 
trade in which he has specialized. The final certificate of 
the school is not given until after a year's work in an ap- 
proved shop. During this year the student workman sends 
a weekly written report to the school describing the pro- 
gress of his shop work, wages received, and any other par- 
ticulars he thinks should be noted. If the year's work is 
satisfactory to the employer, the full diploma of the school 
is granted. This is practically an entirely new feature in 
such schools, and promises to be one extremely valuable to 
the three parties concerned. 

The first three months in such a school might well be 
considered a probationary period, for not all boys are 
adapted for industrial pursuits, and it is essential for their 
future weKare that this be discovered and acted upon early 
in their career. 

There is a grave danger that schools of this character will 
be regarded by schoolmen as a refuge for all boys who have 
failed to achieve distinction in the ordinary academic work. 



SOME NEW TYPES OF SCHOOLS 81 

This tendency will have to be strenuously resisted. These 
schools are not the last resort of the mentally weak, nor are 
they to be used to separate the sheep from the goats. They 
must not be regarded as cities of refuge. The lame, the 
halt, the blind, and the mental and moral defective must 
be eliminated as carefully here, as in the ordinary school, 
and provided for specially and separately. Brains are just 
as necessary for the industrial worker as for the minister, 
lawyer, or doctor. 

After such schools are established, the question of secur- 
ing the attendance of those for whom they are designed 
will require consideration. We may as well admit the fact 
that until compulsion is resorted to, and rigorously en- 
forced, attendance at these schools will be small and spas- 
modic, and that much accommodation will remain unused 
and equipment lie idle. There is in existence a school on 
which considerably more than $100,000 has been spent in 
building and equipment. This school is attended by barely 
forty boys in the daytime, and were it not for the large and 
enthusiastic evening classes such an expenditure could not 
be justified. 

In another case a day industrial school was established 
offering an excellent course for both boys and girls. Letters 
were sent to the parents of every boy and girl leaving the 
elementary schools, the leaving classes were addressed and 
the benefits of the proposed school pointed out to them, an 
energetic advertising campaign was conducted lasting for 
two months, the enthusiastic support of the local press 
secured, and when the school was opened three boys and 
two girls presented themselves. The situation was taken 
in hand by two energetic and enthusiastic members of the 
advisory committee, and they, by personal visits to the 
homes of the most likely cases, were able to get together 
two classes of twenty each, which are now doing most ex- 
cellent work along industrial lines. 

Compulsion is distasteful, but it will eventually come; 



82 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

meanwhile the community must be content to accept gross 
and wanton waste both of its human and material re- 
sources. 

In the absence of compulsion this waste might be some- 
what lessened by a system of scholarships. A well-organ- 
ized scheme of scholarships and maintenance allowances 
is becoming a prominent feature of the English and 
Scotch systems of industrial education, and though it is 
said the necessity for such on this continent is not so 
urgent, yet it cannot be altogether ignored if all are to 
have equal opportunity. Old age pension schemes are to- 
day within the range of practical politics, and some of the 
older countries have already adopted such schemes. From 
an economic point of view it would pay any nation so to 
arrange matters that these would not be generally neces- 
sary. Old age pensions are required largely because the 
conditions of industry and the incapacity of the worker 
have been such as to prevent him making the needed pro- 
vision for the time when he is no longer wanted in the in- 
dustries. Of course, extravagance, thriftlessness, drunken- 
ness, and other factors also come into play; but when all 
due allowance is made, the fact remains that the economic 
conditions of industry and the high cost of living are 
largely to blame. The newer nations should, while there 
is yet time, start at the other end of the scale, and if 
a system of allowances is necessary, in order that every 
child may be industrially trained and thus removed from 
the ranks of casual laborers, the expenditure should not be 
shirked. 

The scheme of the London (England) County Council 
is elaborate and comprehensive. The schools are of two 
classes; the first, offering opportunities under which a boy 
or girl may proceed from the elementary school to the uni- 
versity, and the second, providing trade training for both 
boys and girls. Children whose parents earn less than $800 
a year are also eligible for maintenance allowances. The 



SOME NEW TYPES OF SCHOOLS 83 

amounts vary, but for boys are generally $30 for the first 
year, $50 for the second year, and $75 for the third year. 
The allowances for girls are usually $40 for the first year, 
and $60 for the second year. A probationary period of 
three months has to be passed without any maintenance 
allowance at all, in order to prevent the funds being wasted 
on unsuitable candidates. The parents are also required to 
sign a declaration that they intend their children to enter 
the trade on completion of their training. The cost of the 
whole scheme in 1908 was $750,000, and it is estimated 
that when it is fully at work it will represent an annual 
expenditure of $1,250 000. By these schemes of scholar- 
ships bright boys and girls can rise from the lowest point to 
the highest in the educational organization, according to 
ability, capacity, and desire, irrespective of financial con- 
dition. The accompanying diagram on page 85 shows the 
scheme as applied in Manchester. 

As these schools grow in number and importance another 
problem that will have to be solved is the disposal of the 
product. If the schools are to be effective, shop conditions 
must prevail. The instruction cannot be definitely indus- 
trial unless it is designed to meet industrial conditions, and 
the only effective test of the material product turned out is 
the place it can take in fair competition in the open market. 
The more the work of the boy is subjected to the rigid laws 
of trade, and the more he can be made to feel exactly the 
same responsibility that rests upon an actual workman in 
the shops, the better will be his training and the higher his 
place in the industrial world when he enters it. There is no 
doubt that the boy must become intimate with the market- 
able product. 

There is all the difference in the world between a school 
where boys and girls are making things for themselves, 
and a workshop where they are being made for others and 
for the general market. In the schools as at present or- 
ganized the boy is able to please himself, to choose largely 



84 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

what he shall make, how he shall make it, how much time 
he shall spend doing it, and what quantity of material he 
shall use. In the shop the work must be done on time, 
the orders of others must be obeyed, articles made and 
work done regardless of personal whims and fancies, and 
the greatest economy exercised in the use of material. 
There is no picking and choosing, hence the atmosphere is 
entirely different. It is this shop atmosphere that the boy 
must be impregnated with. 

There are several ways in which the product may be dis- 
posed of. If the plan of establishing the school with the 
minimum of equipment is followed, it will be several years 
before that equipment is complete and the product in this 
case will be absorbed by the school itself. After comple- 
tion a machine or tool should be properly valued, by com- 
parison with standard makes, and the value credited to the 
school. Much of the product can also be used in the other 
schools of the city. If the work is up to market standard — 
and none should be accepted unless it is — some of it should 
certainly be sold at full market price. The product of the 
schools for many years will be very small in amount, and if 
care be taken not to disturb the ordinary market condi- 
tions, no harm will result from the test thus applied to the 
work of the school. 

The Williamson School of Trades and many other such 
schools are opposed to the sale of the product, but in the 
Williamson School the building trades find sufficient work 
in the buildings of the institution itself, and in this way 
ordinary trade conditions are met with in the work that is 
done. 

Let us take one or two examples of the way in which this 
important question has been solved. 

In the Rochester Shop School every article manufac- 
tured is something needed in the public schools, and which 
the Board of Education would otherwise purchase. It 
must also have an educational value. All the product is 




VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER 

i'8 jeais of age and upwards 



MUNICIPAL SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY 

(Faculty of Tecbnology-Univerflity of ManoheBter-) 
16 years of age and upwards 



MUNICIPAL SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGn" 

14 years of age and upwards 



MUNICIPAL TRAINING SCHOOL OF DOMESTIC 

ECONOMY AND COOKERY w^e 

15 years of age and upwards ^\* 



MUNICIPAL 

SECONDARY 

SCHOOL 

12 to 17 years of age 
Bursaries for Probationers for 

Pupil-Teachership, 

Bnisaries for Scholars in the 

Munioijuil Secondary School 

and Senior Secondary School 

Scholarships 

Open to Scholars already 

in the School 



Entrance 



PUPIL 
^ TEACHERS' 

Bxamination COLLEGES 




Residential and Day 
TRAINING 
COLLEGES 



9 to 18 years of age 
^Bmsartes for Probationers Ibr 
■** Pupil-Teachership 

Senior Secondary School 

Scholarships, 
Bursaries for Foundation 

Scholars,etc. 

Open to Scholars already 

in the Schools 




DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING THE SYSTEM OF SCHOLARSHIPS AND BURSARIES 



86 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

"run through" in lots of six with time and stock cards. The 
electrical department has charge of the repair of the bells, 
telephones, gongs, batteries, and lighting systems of the 
public schools of the city. It also installs any new work 
required. The plumbing department also has charge of the 
repair work in the public schools, such as broken closet- 
tanks, broken water-pipes, connecting gas-plates, repairing 
drinking-fountains, installing bowls, removing stoppages 
in waste-pipes, etc. 

The Newton Independent Industrial School is also one 
of those adopting the policy of doing trade work and turn- 
ing out a real product. This school was commenced with a 
minimum equipment, and its work up to the present has 
very largely consisted of making supplementary equip- 
ment for the different shops and for the other public 
schools. The printing class of the school has been credited 
with more than three hundred dollars by the school de- 
partment. A monthly paper, "Industry," is printed and 
published by the boys. The following is an extract from 
that paper, written by one of the pupils: — 

The greater part of the equipment in the sheet-metal depart- 
ment has been made by the pupils, who have thus gained valuable 
experience and also saved the school considerable expense. The 
equipment was made in two departments of the school, the 
woodworking department and the machine department. In the 
woodworking department there were made five benches, one 
stock table, twelve riveting-hammer handles, twelve mallets, 
twelve tool racks, six boxes for miscellaneous work, patterns for 
one anvil, and six diflFerent stakes. The following were made in 
the machine department: twelve riveting-hammers, twelve tin- 
smith hammers, and twenty-four punches. The gas-piping was 
also done by the machinists. The equipment purchased by the 
school consists of six gas forges, twelve soldering-irons, and two 
machines for sheet-metal forging. 

It goes without saying that all interests concerned, edu- 
cation and industry, capital and labor, must cooperate if 
effective schools are to be established; and the better under- 



SOME NEW TYPES OF SCHOOLS 87 

standing that would be thus brought about between some- 
times opposite parties would result in a great economic sav- 
ing both to capital and labor, in reducing to some extent the 
waste of millions in senseless strikes and pitiless lockouts. 

As showing the different organizations cooperating in the 
establishment of industrial schools in Germany, take the 
following. At an industrial school exhibition held in Dres- 
den, 251 schools participated. Of these 48 were supported 
by the State, 47 by different trades and guilds, 88 by other 
industrial organizations, 45 by towns, and 23 by private 
individuals. 

The cooperative plan, as carried on with various modi- 
fications in Cincinnati, Fitchburg, Beverly, and other 
places, has much to recommend it. The first striking 
advantage seems to be the economy of its management. 
Twice the number of students can be taught at about 
two thirds the cost, owing to the fact that the schools do 
not require any special shop equipment. There is further 
economy, in that the student is earning while he is learn- 
ing, and in this way a much greater constituency is likely 
to be reached. The pupils are divided into two groups, 
one being in the factory and the other in the school — 
spending alternate weeks in each. 

The Cincinnati school is of technical rather than indus- 
trial rank, and provides for about 230 students, who are at 
school or in the shop nine hours a day, six days a week for 
48 weeks in the year. The plan, modified to suit local needs 
and circumstances, has great possibilities, if, and only if, 
the objections of organized labor can be overcome. These 
objections at present are: — 

1. The boys are in the course on sufferance, as the veto 
power is in the hands of the manufacturer. 

2. That the scheme is one in which the people have no 
hand or control. 

3. That principles opposed to trades-unionism may be 
taught. 



88 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

4. That any boy who shows a desire to advocate union- 
ism may be instantly dismissed. 

5. That the teacher is under the control of the manufact- 
urer. 

The American Federation of Labor, in reporting on 
this plan, says : — 

Any scheme of education which depends for its carrying out on 
a private group, subject to no public control, leaves unsolved the 
fundamental democratic problem of giving the boys of the coun- 
try an equal opportunity and the citizens the power to criticize 
and reform their educational machinery. 

Labor is said to be opposed to trade schools, and quite 
rightly so, as the term has been interpreted; but in the 
same way that apprenticeship has become modernized in 
accordance with the spirit of the age, so a trade school, 
carried on under public management and control, bears 
little relationship to that which has hitherto been under- 
stood by the term. The ordinary conception of a trade 
school has been a school in which there has been given a 
narrow type of instruction, concerned only with manual 
dexterity and skill, no attention being paid to the under- 
lying scientific principles on which the practice is based. 
These objections no longer hold, as a school of the type 
suggested will do all or attempt to do all that labor requires 
in turning out a broad, all-round man. 

These schools will be expensive; the cost of material and 
equipment, the high salaries that will have to be paid to 
competent teachers, the small numbers that can eflSciently 
be taught at one time, all contribute to this end; but surely 
expenditure in this direction may legitimately be regarded 
as a justifiable form of social investment. If ignorance is 
dangerous to the State, idleness is equally so; and the State 
which acknowledges its obhgation to teach children to read 
and keep books, cannot logically deny its obligation to 
teach them to work. In dealing with expenditures on indus- 
trial education, the aggregate amounts should not be dwelt 



SOME NEW TYPES OF SCHOOLS 89 

upon, but comparisons made with expenditures in other 
directions. 

Take the following from a current newspaper: — 

WAsmNGTON, D.C., May 22, 1912. America's demand for the 
luxuries of life has not diminished with the ever-mounting cost 
of necessities. Articles listed as "luxuries" imported into this 
country during the fiscal year ending next month will exceed 
in value $200,000,000. Luxuries, or "articles of voluntary use," 
include diamonds, works of art, laces, embroideries, wine, to- 
bacco, ostrich feathers, toys, perfumeries, cosmetics, and jewelry. 
Works of art, according to a statement issued to-day, will ap- 
proximate $40,000,000 in value for the full year, compared with 
$22,500,000 in 1911. Diamonds and other precious stones will be 
about $41,000,000 for the year, thus exceeding any earlier years 
except 1910 and 1907. Laces and embroideries will amount to 
about $44,000,000 for the year. This is an increase of fully fifty 
per cent in a decade. Other "luxuries'* which help to bring up 
the grand total are tobacco and its manufactures, imports of which 
for the year will reach $32,000,000 in value, and toys of which 
$9,000,000 will be imported. 

The above shows that there is a vast amount of money 
going to waste, some of which could be diverted with ad- 
vantage to the promotion of industrial education. 

An attempt has been made to discover the annual 
amount spent and invested in baseball, but the President 
of the National Baseball Commission will not "even hazard 
a guess." If this amount could be discovered, it would 
probably be found largely to exceed that spent on indus- 
trial and technical education. 

If retrenchment is the order of the day, the schools are 
the first to suffer, while really there are hundreds of other 
directions in which we could better afford to economize, but 
economy except in education is the best hated of all the 
virtues. We are too ready to accept the fiction of the politi- 
cian, that our schools are costing too much, when the fact 
is, that we are too poor to spend so little. Much more 
than we now spend would be money in our pockets if 
we only knew the right way to spend it. In calculating the 



90 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

expenditure in any other business, we also estimate the 
returns that may reasonably be expected, and so it should 
be here. 

The Federal Governments might fairly be called on 
to bear part of the expense. It is a popular fallacy in Can- 
ada and the United States that education is a matter of 
Provincial and State concern, and that the Federal Gov- 
ernments cannot legally enter into the field. A politician 
is always able to find an excuse for inaction and to take 
refuge behind the Constitution. On the other hand, if the 
Constitution stands in his way it does not take him long to 
drive a coach and four through it. 

The United States Government, in its Bureau of Edu- 
cation, in the aid it gives to agricultural and engineer- 
ing education, has recognized the principle that indus- 
trial and technical education is a matter of national 
concern. 

Likewise the Canadian Government has established 
experimental farms, a military college for instruction in 
engineering, given a grant towards a railway school at 
McGill University, provided instruction in navigation 
and seamanship, made grants to art schools and various 
industrial exhibitions, and in other ways tacitly made the 
same admission as the United States Government. Under 
these circumstances the constitutions would not suffer 
irretrievable damage should aid be further extended, to 
assist the great mass of industrial workers. 

No single community should be asked to bear the whole 
burden. If the individual could be retained in the place 
where he received his training, that community might 
expect to find its wealth proportionately increased; but 
labor moves, and especially trained labor, and after train- 
ing a man the community is liable to lose the advantages 
arising from that training. Under these circumstances 
no man can be trained for permanent service in the par- 
ticular locality where he happens to live at the time he 



^ 



SOME NEW TYPES OF SCHOOLS 91 

receives his training. He is being trained for service in 
the country at large, and it is not unreasonable to expect 
the country to pay, at least partially, for what it gets. 

The trouble is that while people believe, or are thought 
to believe, thoroughly in practical education, they are not 
as willing to expend large sums on it as they are upon the 
long-established school or college which has a firm hold 
upon the popular imagination, and moreover is not in an 
experimental stage. The people will have industrial schools 
when they are willing to pay for them. Whether the money 
be supplied from public or private sources, it is essential 
from an economic standpoint that there be no waste. 

Underlying all the questions of the establishment, organ- 
ization, and management of such schools, is this necessity 
for money. This really fixes their extent and eflSciency. 
Not only so, but the attendance at them will largely depend 
upon the same factor. The parent and the boy have to be 
convinced that the training given is "worth while," and 
that it will not only strengthen the boy's powers and in- 
tellect, but will also result in increased earning capacity. 
These schools are not designed to draw very largely from 
the existing types of high schools, which generally meet the 
needs of those attending them. They should attract a 
large part of that floating population of children between 
thirteen or fourteen to sixteen years of age, who are at 
present engaged in various occupations that have no 
educational value in the present and give no efficiency for 
increased earning power in the future. 

In summing up the whole situation it seems to be be- 
yond controversy that some form of productive industry 
will be the life work of the large majority of children 
leaving the public elementary schools, and also that these 
children are not attracted by, or are not able to avail 
themselves of, the provision hitherto made for further 
education. 

If these propositions are admitted and recognized as 



92 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

defects, it then becomes our duty to provide a satisfac- 
tory remedy. 

The school suggested to accomplish this purpose is one 
which will — 

(1) Continue and extend the essentials of the training 
previously given. 

(2) Give to the boy or girl from thirteen to sixteen 
years of age a training definitely designed to qualify for 
intelligent industry. 

(3) Lay a foundation for further study either technical 
or academic. 

(4) Make such provision that financial considerations 
do not prevent the attendance of any who wish to receive 
the training offered. 



^ 



VI 



VARIOUS PROBLEMS RELATING TO SUPPLEMEN- 
TARY EDUCATION IN DAY AND EVENING CON- 
TINUATION SCHOOLS 

There are a number of important problems concerned 
with various forms of supplementary education. Some 
of these will now be discussed. After the pupil has com- 
pleted his attendance at the primary school, or in a few 
cases attended a school of the type mentioned in the pre- 
vious chapter, his only hope for further education is in 
evening schools, or some other supplementary form which 
can be taken after his daily work is completed, or when he 
is out of work through slackness of trade or other causes. 

Evening schools of various kinds have long been estab- 
lished. Their first purpose was to supplement general edu- 
cation, and like the day schools they had no connection 
with practical industry. To-day they are looked upon as 
an essential part of any organized and complete scheme of 
industrial education. 

There is probably no branch of our educational system 
in which so much self-deception has been practiced. We 
have willfully blinded ourselves to many undesirable fea- 
tures and stoutly tried to convince ourselves that all is 
well. Directly a people gets the idea that its educational 
system is the "best in the world," it falls peacefully asleep. 
The sedative potion that is now being administered in con- 
nection with evening schools is the blessed word "enroll- 
ment." We are always proudly told how many students 
are "enrolled," but when it comes towards the middle or 
end of the session the numbers in actual attendance are not 
so widely blazoned. 

We are inclined to pander to the too prevalent opinion 



94 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

that if an institution can be filled, it is bound to do good 
work. We are getting into the habit of worshiping size and 
numbers. Nothing stimulates popular pride more than 
looking at the growth of cities and the number of people in 
them. The extension of the area covered by bricks and 
mortar, with the number of people herded therein, is always 
proudly cited as the first and incontestable evidence of the 
growth of a city. Everybody does it, and the fascination 
of numbers is laying hold of us in matters of education. 
Increase in numbers, unless accompanied by several other 
things, is not necessarily an evidence of growth and pro- 
gress. 

The percentage of attendance at evening schools varies, 
but as a general rule half the enrolled students complete 
about one half of the possible attendances. The variation 
is from twenty to sixty per cent, according to local condi- 
tions and the character of the instruction. There can be no 
doubt that where the instruction has been based on the 
daily vocations of the pupils, and is directly applicable to 
these vocations, the interest is far greater, the benefits 
derived are more far-reaching, and the attendance is more 
constant and regular. It has been said that regular attend- 
ance is the best evidence of sound organization. Judged by 
this test, the majority of our schools are badly organized. 

Evening school instruction is at best a poor substitute 
for adequate instruction in the daytime, but owing to social 
and economic conditions it does not seem possible to dis- 
pense with it. This view is well expressed in a Report of 
the Department of Commerce and Labor, Washington 
(No. 33), on "Industrial Education and Industrial Condi- 
tions in Germany" : — 

The evening school problem is a real bane to industrial educa- 
tion, and is not confined to any one country or to any one people, 
but is common to the world. It is inherent in no particular sys- 
tem, but finds its origin in an unavoidable condition of life. It is 
unfortunate but apparently irremediable. It has received the close 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 95 

attention and earnest thought of the most enthusiastic and con- 
scientious promoters of the new education. It has very likely 
come to stay. Not until we enjoy a universal prosperity can 
opportunities of education be open equally to all. The disad- 
vantages of evening schools are numerous and are easily patent 
to any interested observer. Intellectual application on Sundays 
or in the evening, when the body is exhausted with a day or week 
of physical employment, leads to over-exertion, and is apt to 
arouse a feeling of repulsion in the learner toward the study 
which robs him of well-earned repose. It has also been suggested 
that Sunday study of industrial subjects interferes with church 
work, and leads to a neglect of religion and higher moral thinking. 
Furthermore, evenings and Sundays together offer too few hours 
for proper systematic instruction. 

Notwithstanding the great and admitted defects of even- 
ing class instruction, the fact remains that for the large 
mass of our population it is the only form that can be made 
available. It is either that or none. The existing defects of 
evening schools can be very largely remedied, and in view 
of the serious drop in attendance noted above, it becomes 
incumbent upon us to seek measures to avoid this intellect- 
ual and economic waste. 

The question of compulsory attendance at continua- 
tion schools is one that requires serious consideration. 
Democratic countries like Canada and the United States 
seriously object to compulsion in any form, so much so that 
their laws are not always enforced, but are frequently 
evaded or ignored; notwithstanding this objection to com- 
pulsion we shall never reap the full benefit of day or evening 
continuation schools until compulsory measures regarding 
attendance are adopted. Every locality should have the 
power given to it by State or Provincial legislation to estab- 
lish and enforce compulsory attendance for children up to 
the age of seventeen years. The time devoted to this con- 
tinued education, up to six or eight hours a week, could 
very well be taken from the time now devoted to industry. 

The Province of Ontario has recently passed such a meas- 
ure, entitled "An Act respecting the Compulsory School 



96 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

Attendance of Adolescents." "Adolescent" is defined to 
mean "a young person of either sex who has passed the 
high school entrance examination, or completed the fourth 
form (eighth grade) of the public schools, or an equivalent 
course, and is under the age of seventeen years, or who is 
not less than fourteen nor more than seventeen years of 
age." The chief provisions of this act are as follows : — 

1. A Board may pass by-laws requiring the attendance of 
adolescents in a city, town, or village under the jurisdiction 
of the Board at day or evening classes to be established by 
the Board or at some other classes or school in the munici- 
pality. 

2. Every such by-law shall be passed at a special meeting of the 
Board called for the purpose of considering the same, after 
public notice of the meeting and the object thereof has been 
given once a week for four weeks, in some newspaper 
published in the city, town, or village, or if there is no such 
newspaper, in a newspaper published in an adjoining mu- 
nicipality or in the county or district town. 

The by-laws may provide — 

(a) For the compulsory attendance of every adolescent who is 
not otherwise receiving a suitable education. 

(b) For the establishment of day and evening classes for 
adolescents. 

(c) For fixing the age, not exceeding seventeen years, for such 
compulsory attendance. 

(d) For providing courses of study and instructors approved by 
the Minister of Education. 

(e) For special classes for either sex, or for both, and for those 
engaged in particular trades or occupations designated in 
the by-law. 

(J) For fixing the seasons and number of hours in each day and 
in each week for the compulsory attendance required under 
the by-law. 

Every by-law passed under this act comes into operation 
thirty days after, unless a petition is presented to the Board 
of Education, signed by at least ten per cent of the electors, 
praying that the question be submitted to the people. If 
the by-law fails to receive the consent of the electors, it 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 97 

may not be submitted again for at least one year there- 
after. Penalties are provided for violations of the act either 
by parent or employer. The number of hours an ado- 
lescent is employed, added to the number of hours he is 
required to attend school, must in no case exceed in any 
day or week the number of hours such adolescent may be 
lawfully employed. The State might well offer double 
grants or other consideration to any locality taking advan- 
tage of this permissive legislation. 

The length of the average working day is a powerful 
factor in determining the attendance at evening schools. 
Leaving out of consideration the question of compulsion, 
the establishment of a universal eight-hour day for all 
industrial workers must be considered as a preliminary to 
the education of those working at the trades. The adop- 
tion of this would very much lessen the force of the argu- 
ment that the worker is not in a fit state to profit by in- 
struction when given in addition to his daily work. If an 
eight-hour day were established and some such measures 
as indicated below were adopted, many of the arguments 
urged against evening schools would disappear. These 
measures should concern the student, classification, teacher, 
curriculum, and general organization. 

The merchant who has goods to sell takes every oppor- 
timity to bring them to the attention of the people for 
whose trade he is catering, and the "same business meth- 
ods should be applied here. The boy leaves school at four- 
teen years of age or earlier. He rejoices in his new-found 
freedom and thinks no more of school. No boy or girl 
should be allowed to leave the elementary school without 
having had the evening school system fully described, and 
without having seen its classes at work. The gap that now 
exists between the day and evening school should be no 
longer allowed to continue. Records should be kept of 
every boy and girl leaving the day schools and their occu- 
pation should be known. 



98 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

The Education Committee of Rochdale (England) sends 
a copy of the following circular to every boy and girl leav- 
ing the public elementary school: — 

COUNTY BOROUGH OF ROCHDALE EDUCATION 
COMMITTEE 

The Members of the above Committee very earnestly invite 
you and all the other scholars who have recently left the Day 
Schools to attend an Evening School during the session commenc- 
ing Monday, September — , 19 — . 

Your education only begins in the Day School. To be really 
valuable it must still be continued for several years. 

Your future position depends almost entirely upon it, and the 
use you make of the next few years of your life. 

Education courses which begin in the Evening School and end 
in the Technical School have been arranged, and these courses 
aim at preparing students for positions in both Workshops and 
OflSces. 

One of these courses will suit you, but it is essential that you 
should begin at once, before the knowledge gained in the Day 
School is lost. A few years' delay means that you may spend part 
of your manhood re-doing the work of your childhood. 

The accompanying prospectus supplies you with particulars of 
the Schools, the Teachers, and the Subjects taught, and any 
further information will be readily supplied either at the Evening 
Schools or at this oflSce. 

The fee must be paid in advance either in one payment or by 
such weekly installments as you may privately arrange with the 
Head Teacher. 

Scholarships and Prizes are offered for competition, and the 
students of all Schools are eligible to compete: by this means an 
efficient student should be able to secure a good education free of 
cost. 



Secretary of the Committee. 
Education Office, Baillie Street, 
September, 19 — . 

The cooperation of employers is essential to the success 
of any plan for continuation schools, day or evening. 
Every employer should be required to report to the educa- 
tional authority the name, address, wages, and hours of 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 99 

labor of every boy and girl employed. The Adolescent Act, 
above referred to, contains the following provision : — 

Where a by-law passed under this act is in force every person 
who has in his employment any adolescent to whom the by-law 
applies shall give notice to the Board of such employment at such 
times as the by-law may require, and shall state in such notice 
the hours during which the adolescent is employed by him. 

The greatest incentive to the student to engage in any 
form of industrial or vocational training must always be 
the monetary rewards and social recognition held out in 
the trade to which the education is to apply. When the 
wage-earner learns that increased skill means increased 
wages, and all that this includes, he will attend suitable 
classes if offered, and here a duty rests upon the employer. 
Something more is required from him than mere academic 
recognition of the evening classes. 

The average workman has the idea, and he is not 
altogether without warrant for it, that the employer ad- 
vocates industrial education from personal and selfish 
motives; and until he shows the reality of his advocacy by 
making attendance at these schools a condition of employ- 
ment and a factor in promotion, by granting increased 
wages or certain privileges, by paying all or part of the 
fees imposed, by a reduction of working hours or of the 
apprenticeship term, that idea will remain in the mind of 
the workman. 

The advantages accruing from increased earning capac- 
ity arising from adequate and efficient training should be 
shared equally between the employer and the employee. 
One English firm has adopted the plan of crediting each 
apprentice or workman, who attends certain specified 
classes two evenings a week, with one shilling (twenty-five 
cents) weekly, and paying the same with five per cent 
interest added as a bonus at the end. of apprenticeship or 
other fixed period. 

Another problem that is met with is a certain disin- 



100 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

clination inherent in the workman to avail himself of the 
opportunities offered, and this disinclination can be over- 
come only by showing him that the instruction is calcu- 
lated to benefit him financially, to raise his social status, 
and to enable him to perform some useful service to the 
community in which he lives. The lack of desire may 
often be attributed to lack of opportunity. 

In order that the greatest benefit may be obtained 
from the instruction given, the majority of students at- 
tending evening classes need a little expert guidance in 
regard to the courses it is best for them to take; and for 
the purpose of giving this guidance the school should be 
open at least a week before actual class work commences, 
with capable persons in attendance, for the purpose of 
giving the advice necessary to each individual. These 
persons should have a knowledge not only of what the 
school has to offer, but also of the requirements and pros- 
pects of the industries concerned. 

The classification of the students is one of the vital ques- 
tions upon which the success of evening schools depends. 
There is a widespread unwillingness amongst organizers of 
evening classes to exclude any student who wishes to attend, 
and within certain limits this is perfectly justifiable; but in 
the interests of all concerned no student should be ad- 
mitted to any class until he is able to give evidence that he 
is in a position to profit by the instruction given. If the 
public school records, as previously advocated, have been 
carefully kept, his capacity and ability will be known. If 
the scheme be properly organized, this does not really mean 
the exclusion of any student, but it does mean his direction 
to classes in which his knowledge can be used as a starting- 
point for the new instruction that is to be given. At present 
students are herded together, those of different ages, ca- 
pacities, and occupations often being grouped in one class. 

This question is a most complex one. Let us take an 
actual example or two. In a town of ten thousand people. 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 101 

classes were organized in workshop mathematics and me- 
chanical drawing. Each class was held once a week, and 
the majority of students attended both. Thirty-nine stu- 
dents were in regular attendance, and their ages varied from 
fourteen to forty-four years. Their occupations were as 
follows: seventeen woodworkers, three tinsmiths, two 
shoemakers, nine machinists, two trunkmakers, two elec- 
tricians, one laborer, two clerks, one rubber-cutter. The 
attempt was being made to give instruction, at one time, 
suitable to each age and to each occupation. The success 
that was being met with need scarcely be stated. 

In another town one hundred and fifty students regis- 
tered. Their ages ranged from fourteen to fifty. There 
were sixty-seven between fourteen and twenty; sixty be- 
tween twenty and thirty; thirteen between thirty and 
forty; and ten between forty and fifty. As their ages 
and occupations varied, so did their attainments. In this 
school forty-three different occupations were represented, 
and the same plan was being followed with the same de- 
gree of success. 

The instruction in cases like the above has to be directed 
towards the average, and the very dull and the very bright 
must be almost entirely ignored. The instruction required 
for one trade is not the same as that required for another. 
The various subjects should be differentiated according to 
the trade; arithmetic for the carpenter, drawing for the 
plumber and the tinsmith, chemistry for the textile workers. 
Drawing, mathematics, and science may be called the " three 
R's" of industrial education, and before we really know the 
kind best suited for each trade much investigation of trade 
practice and requirements must be undertaken. 

Another phase of the subject is that relating to the 
content of courses of study and to the methods employed 
in their presentation. In regard to the curriculum for 
evening schools, each locality, in a great measure, will 
be a law unto itself. We are not so much concerned at 



102 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

this stage with the actual subjects taught, as with the 
methods of presentation. In the first place, students 
should be encouraged to take courses of related subjects 
rather than single subjects, though, of course, those who 
wish to take only one subject should not be barred. On 
the completion of these courses diplomas should be given. 
These diplomas should indicate a definite standard, and 
be such that employers will consider them as incontro- 
vertible evidence of the ability of the student. The logi- 
cal or academic method of treatment in the majority of 
cases should not be adopted. The instruction must begin 
with topics of immediate interest and be at once appli- 
cable to the shop work of the student. Contrast with this 
the usual method of teaching mechanical drawing. The 
student is started on a series of plates generally copied. 
These consist at first of lines and angles, and geometric 
figures, which are doubtless of great value when there is a 
prospect of the pupil spending three or four years at the 
course. If the same plan be followed in the evening school, 
the student will be kept on such plates for the first six or 
seven weeks. He has not the knowledge to enable him to 
look far enough ahead to see the practical application of 
these problems to the work in which he is daily engaged, 
and so becomes discouraged, and ceases his attendance. 

If the logical method of presentation is absolutely nec- 
essary, it may be adopted after the student has been shown, 
by a number of problems in which he is interested, that the 
instruction is calculated to be of direct use to him in his 
occupation. The method of teaching drawing in evening 
schools should be more largely from written specifications 
than from plans and plates which have to be copied either 
to the same or a different scale. 

In one school a large class was formed in workshop 
mathematics. After the class had been in session for about 
six weeks, a very serious drop in the attendance was noted, 
about two thirds of the students having discontinued. An 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 103 

inquiry was made amongst the students, and the reasons 
given by them for the discontinuance of their attendance 
were — 

1. That they could not understand the instruction. 

2. That the work given was of no use to them in the shop. 

3. That the teacher did not know anything of the require- 
ments of the industries in which they were engaged. 

The majority of these students were all expert workmen at 
their trades. 

In another case a class in bookkeeping was offered, and 
when the students met it was found that not one of them 
knew enough of elementary arithmetic to be able to do any 
serious work in bookkeeping. This was tactfully pointed 
out to them and they had intelligence enough to under- 
stand the situation. Bookkeeping was changed to arith- 
metic, excellent work was done, and the attendance kept 
up till the close of the session. It is not what the school 
desires to do, but what the particular trade or industry 
demands. The instruction must be that desired by the stu- 
dents, and, by the resourceful teacher, they can generally 
be made to desire what they really need. 

In the prefatory note to the regulations for evening 
schools issued by the English Education Department, the 
conditions generally met with are aptly described : — 

So diverse are the conditions under which such schools have to 
take part in the work of education that no single definite scheme 
of organization or course of study can be prescribed as applicable 
to all localities. Circumstances of life in town and country, the 
number and variety of industries in the locality, previous educa- 
tion and future prospects of students, are some of the considera- 
tions that affect materially the possibilities of evening class 
teaching. In view of this great range of conditions, regulations 
which have to be of national application must necessarily be 
elastic. These regulations are drawn so as to permit the direct 
adaptation of the course of instruction in each school to the needs 
of the locality. At the same time they prescribe limitations 
which aim at securing definite educational results as a condition 
of grants. 



104 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

Less demand is generally found for actual workshop prac- 
tice than for those subjects which are related to the daily 
work of the students, but which cannot be obtained in the 
shops. I have in mind two cities of about fifteen thousand 
population each, where the main industries were the various 
forms of woodworking. In these it was impossible to estab- 
lish evening classes in practical woodworking, while draw- 
ing and workshop arithmetic proved comparatively popular 
and useful. It is largely in this connection that the evening 
trade school is capable of demonstrating its usefulness. It 
is not necessary for the student to work on those machines 
at which he is engaged during the day. He requires prac- 
tice on other machines the work on which is more remuner- 
ative, and which will enable him to take the next step in 
the workshop. 

There is no more important problem in connection with 
evening schools than the one which concerns itself with 
the selection of teachers. We have been told for years by 
educational psychologists that, "as is the teacher, so is 
the school," and if this be true anywhere it is certainly 
true in the case of the evening schools. Probably no single 
cause has contributed more to their comparative failure 
and to the paucity and irregularity of attendance than the 
incapacity of the teacher and his inability to take the view- 
point of the student and of the industry in which he is 
engaged. 

Regarding the question of the kind of teacher required 
there has always been, and probably always will be, a 
decided difference of opinion. On the one hand, the present 
educational authorities contend for the employment of day 
school teachers who know how to teach, and on the other 
hand, the industries demand the engagement of teachers 
who know what to teach, who know shop work, and who are 
thoroughly familiar with shop requirements. Up to the 
present time the trained teacher has had the preference. It 
has been assumed, because a man has been employed as a 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 105 

teacher of mathematics, science, or drawing in a school that 
has been successful in passing a large number of candidates 
into colleges or through examinations, that he is thereby- 
qualified to give the kind of instruction that is needed by 
those engaged in the industries, but this assumption is 
certainly not warranted by the results that have been 
achieved. 

The purpose of the two kinds of teaching is entirely dif- 
ferent. The day school curriculum in the subjects men- 
tioned, and in others, contains much that can be and must 
be dispensed with in evening school work, owing to the 
requirements of the students and the time limitations. If 
the man who has been trained as a teacher is capable of 
almost eradicating the habits of a lifetime, of taking an 
entirely new viewpoint, and of learning the requirements 
of particular industries, he will make an ideal teacher for 
evening class work. 

Where professional teachers are appointed, they should 
be required, as a condition of their appointment, to make 
themselves thoroughly acquainted with the requirements 
of the industry to which their subject is to apply. This can 
be done on Saturdays and in the summer vacation previous 
to the session in which the classes are to be opened. This 
will, of course, mean their appointment two or three months 
ahead of the time their services are required. This in its 
turn will entail a different method of procedure on the 
part of educational authorities generally. Their usual prac- 
tice is to think and talk for months, and sometimes for 
years, and then to rush the whole business through to com- 
pletion without, after all, adequate consideration and in- 
vestigation. 

The other kind of teacher is the man from the shop, a man 
who has lived the industry and knows it from start to fin- 
ish. The main purpose of the evening schools is to give 
such instruction as can be used in the daily work of the stu- 
dent or is calculated to fit him for a higher position in the 



106 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

industry. No other kind will suffice. In a country where 
the industrial development has been rapid and extensive, 
where new inventions are continually being brought into 
use, and where people are alive and alert to every turn of 
the industrial wheel, it should not be impossible to find well- 
educated foremen and overseers who have the ability to 
enable them to impart, out of the fullness of their know- 
ledge, exactly the kind of instruction required by the em- 
ployer and needed by the student. No man is able to teach 
what he does not know. "No man can teach the shop who 
does not know the shop." The ordinary teacher has been 
set to teach shop processes and he has failed. One of our 
greatest problems is to evolve a new type of teacher. In 
cases where appointments of this character have been 
made, the students have recognized at once the superiority 
and usefulness of the teacher's knowledge, and as a conse- 
quence have been regular in their attendance and persist- 
ent in their efforts to obtain a measure of that knowledge 
for themselves. 

Some who recognize the importance of the provision of 
the right kind of teacher for industrial classes are advocat- 
ing the establishment of normal schools for this purpose. 
If these schools are established, they should have for their 
object the training in the art of teaching of those who are 
already expert workmen and not that of training the teacher 
in shop methods and practices. The first method may suc- 
ceed, but the second has within it the germs of failure. The 
real conditions of industry, its rigid requirements and limi- 
tations, the problems of the subdivision of labor, cost, fac- 
tory organization, disposal of the output, and many other 
equally intricate problems, can only be learned in the 
actual shop, and no type of school yet devised has been 
able to supply this experience. 

In Germany and France vacant positions in industrial 
schools are extensively advertised, an examination is held, 
and the best mechanics and artisans selected for carrying 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 107 

on the work. The principals of these schools, particularly 
in those cases where artisan instructors are employed, 
should be men of considerable executive ability, intellect- 
ual knowledge, and teaching capacity, and should have in 
addition a wide and varied knowledge of the industries. 
Such men, while not interfering with the actual shop meth- 
ods employed, will be able to make use of their peculiar 
qualities in rendering assistance to the different members 
of the teaching staff along the lines in which their training 
has been deficient. 

As evidence of the importance attached to this question 
in Munich, let us consider its thoroughgoing method of 
selecting teachers. These particulars were supplied by Dr. 
G. Kirchensteiner to Mr. Paul>Kreuzpointer, Chairman of 
the Committee on Industrial Education of the American 
Foundrymen's Association: — 

There are two sets of teachers of these schools, the academic 
trained teacher for the academic subjects and the expert mechanic 
for the mechanical part of the instruction. The academic trained 
teacher, when detailed to teach in a trade or industrial school, is 
frequently f urloughed for a given number of months to work in a 
shop of the trade he is detailed to teach. Not, however, for the 
purpose of learning that trade, but to familiarize himself with 
the business language and business method of that trade, so that 
he may be able to apply the knowledge for the benefit of the 
pupils whom he is to instruct. 

For the instruction of the mechanical part of the trade school 
only expert mechanics are engaged. If in the course of two years 
or so, these mechanics prove their inability to teach, they are dis- 
missed and others engaged in their stead at whatever expense. 
However, in trades like carpenters, machinists, and others, where 
expert mechanics are more numerous, there are always some 
who desire to become permanent trade school teachers with a 
state teacher's certificate. 

These have to submit to the following rules: — 

I. (a) Proof of having attended a trade or technical school for 
at least three years. 

(b) Proof of practical trade education and practice. 

(c) Presentation of drawings and specimen of practical work- 
manship. 



108 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

(d) Possession of certificate of his dismissal from school, certifi- 
cate of health and good physical condition, certificate of employ- 
ment in practical work of the trade. 

Provision (a) may be modified, by the candidate attending a 
trade school during the time of his provisional engagement as 
a teacher. 

II. Condition for examination : — 

(a) Production of drawings demanded by the Board of Ex- 
aminers. 

(b) Proof of suflScient knowledge of the materials used and 
technical knowledge pertaining to the trade. 

(c) Production of specimen of workmanship in conformity 
with the drawings. 

{d) Estimates of cost of the work done and material used. 

The examination extends over a period of seven hours. 

The successful passing of the examination entitles the candi- 
date to a provisional engagement for one year, during which he 
receives no compensation nor acquires any right to a permanent 
position. Only if the candidate shows extraordinary ability and 
qualifications may he make application, after six months, for 
part compensation. 

At the end of the provisional year the candidate has to pass 
another examination in the practical management of a class, and 
if successful he is given a temporary position as a teacher. After 
three years' temporary service he may receive a permanent 
engagement according to the following conditions : — 

(a) Presentation of drawings and specimens of workmanship. 

(6) Estimate of the cost of a piece of work according to drawing 
given by the examiner. 

(c) Production of an essay on some subject pertaining to the 
trade. 

(d) Lecture on some subject pertaining to the trade, know- 
ledge of tools, drawing, bookkeeping, and estimating the cost of 
production. 

The school and the facilities it proposes to offer should 
be extensively advertised. The visitor in England during 
July and August cannot fail to notice on all the bill-posting 
stations large posters advertising the classes to be held dur- 
ing the following winter. The fullest use should be made 
of the local press in giving publicity to the school and its 
courses. With reference to this, the principal of a recently 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 109 

established Industrial School in the Province of Ontario 
has said: — 

There is no class in the community more ready to champion 
the cause of industrial education than newspaper editors. 
Through them much may be done to prepare the public for the 
introduction of industrial schools. Newspaper articles giving the 
experience of other places may arouse local pride and lead to a 
demand for the establishment of such schools. At the same time, 
the newspaper editor, being an exceedingly busy man, will appre- 
ciate being supplied with data on industrial education, which he 
has neither time nor opportunity to collect for himself. To supply 
such data is an important part of the work of those interested in 
the introduction of vocational schools. 

The accompanying illustrations are two examples (very 
much reduced) of posters referred to above. The first is 
one which is displayed in all the factories and endorsed by 
the firm. The second is one issued on the reopening of the 
school for the winter term. 

The question of fees is one of considerable importance. 
It may be stated as a general principle that free evening 
schools have not been a success. There is a widespread 
feeling in the human mind that anything obtained for 
nothing is not worth having. A fee should be charged. It 
should be nominal and never high enough to bar out any 
student wishing to attend. Provision should also be made 
for remitting this fee, privately, in necessary cases. In some 
schools the fee is payable in installments if the student so 
desires. A method that has been adopted in some places, 
with considerable success, has been to charge a fee and 
hold it as a guaranty for good behavior and general pro- 
gress, returning it at the end of the session to all who make 
a certain fixed percentage of attendance and otherwise 
satisfy the instructors. This fee is sometimes returned in 
the form of a bank deposit, instruments, or books. 

The length of time the evening schools are in session also 
requires consideration. Is there any reason except anti- 
quated tradition why these schools should be open for only 



ST. THOMAS 

Industrial School 

EVENING CLASSES 



1912— COURSES— 1913 



Woodworking. 
Building Construction. 
Mathematics. 
Mechanical Drawing. 
Applied Science. 



Dressmaking. 
Millinery. 

Commericial Work. 
Practical English. 



ANY person over fourteen years of age is entitled to attend these 
classes, if not enrolled in a day school. 
Here is a chance for you to increase your earning power, cultivate your 
mind and make yourself a more useful citizen. 

There is no entrance examination. Circular and application form may 
be had at the office of this firm. The principal will be pleased to give 
information or advice to any one interested. He will be in the City Hall, 
evenings October 9th, and 11th from 7.30 to 9.30 to enroll intending pupils. 



FALL TERMS: 

October 28th to December 20tfa. 

SPRING TERMS. 

January 6th to April 30th. 

We have pleasure in recommending these Classes of the St. Thomas 
Industrial School to our employees. 

Finn Signature. 



REGISTER NOW FOR WINTER TERM. 

LONDON 

Industrial and Art School 

EVENING CLASSES. 

" Education for Efficiency. ** 



Machine Shop Practice. 
Forge Shop Practice. 
Woodworking. 
xPattemmaking. 
Building Constmction. 

^Heating and Sanitary 
Engineering. 

xWoodcarving. 

xSign Writing. 



COURSES : 

Mechanical Drawing, 

Architectural Drawing. 

Mathematics. 

Practical English. 

Dressmaking. 

Millinery. 

Cooking. 

Home Economics. 

Art and Design. 



Course* marked "x" treXcw Courses for Winter Term. 

ANY resident of the City who is fourteen years of age, and who does 
not attend day school, is eligible to attend the Evening Classes of the 
London. Industrial and Art School. 
The Principal will be pleased to explain the courses to anyone interested. 
He will be in the school, corner King and Colbome Streets, any Monday. 
Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evening during the school term from 
7.30 to 9.30. There is sure to be a rush for places in January. 
If you are interested, call at the school or phone 3800. 
Application Cards may also be had at the Public Library. 

DAY INDUSTRIAL CLASSES FOR BOYS AND GIRLS 
from 14 to 16 years of age. 

Don't leave it till January; register now. 



An AFTERNOON ART CLASS will be opened in January. 



WINTER TERM OPENS MONDAY, JANUARY 6th. 



112 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

SIX months of the year? In cool, well-ventilated, well- 
lighted buildings there is no reason why they should not 
continue all the year round. In New York and other cities 
very successful evening schools for foreigners have been 
held during the summer. True, these students have a seri- 
ous motive underlying their attendance; they are getting 
just what they want; but if the same conditions could be 
brought about in evening industrial schools it is not unrea- 
sonable to suppose that the same results would follow. If 
these classes were continued, all of course would not attend, 
but certainly those most in earnest would do so, and the 
loss of knowledge and interest that is incurred through the 
total cessation of the work for five or six months would be 
considerably reduced. 

The evening schools should be regarded not only as edu- 
cational centres but also as social centres. Trace should be 
kept during the summer of every student who attended the 
schools during the previous winter. This might be done by 
means of the organized educational excursion. Even dur- 
ing the winter months more social opportunities should be 
oflFered. Social intercourse under proper supervision and 
direction has in addition a decidedly educational influence 
and should be made use of wherever possible. Every school 
might be provided with a good optical lantern or cinemato- 
graph and periodical lectures given on industrial subjects 
to the whole school. Opportunities for the meeting to- 
gether of all the students at concerts, lectures, etc., could 
very well be multiplied. At present many schools consist of 
isolated classes, having no connection one with the other. 

In order to secure effective teaching, the classes should 
be much smaller than is generally the case and the utmost 
use should be made of individual instruction. No matter 
what method of classification be adopted, it will never hap- 
pen that a class can be organized the members of which are 
of equal attainments and ability. The student must be made 
to feel that his individuality is recognized and that his 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 113 

identity is not lost in the mass. Large classes in either day 
or evening schools are decidedly wasteful. 

The schools generally open at seven or seven-thirty. 
Why should they not be open one or two hours earlier, in 
order that the students who do not wish or are not able to 
go home may enter, and read or study, after having been 
provided with facilities for washing, and getting tea ? 

The most successful schools have definite plans of mak- 
ing inquiries after absentees. In some, reply post-cards are 
sent. The following is a sample of such a card: — 

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL 

191 

Dear Sir (or Madam) — 

I find that you were absent from the 

While we recognize the fact that absence is sometimes unavoid- 
able, yet regular attendance is so essential to good classwork, and 
to the progress of the individual student, that we expect our 
students to make a special effort to attend regularly, and be 
present on time. 

We are anxious that all the students now enrolled should com- 
plete the course, but in justice to those on the waiting list and to 
the work of the school, we cannot hold places for students who 
are absent from classes except for a suflScient reason. 

The term certificates, upon which graduation diplomas will be 
based, can be granted only to those who attend 80 per cent of the 
classes in the course. Kindly let me know the reason of your 
absence. 

Yours faithfully. 

Principal. 

Better, perhaps, even than this is a system of visitation. 
Absence in many cases is unavoidable. If the absence is 
prolonged, students hesitate to return, fearing that they will 
not be able to "catch up." This difficulty may be over- 
come by the adoption of a series of printed or typewritten 
notes of lessons and directions for home work, for those 
who are thus obliged to be absent. Indeed, it is well worth 
consideration whether each student ought not to be pro- 



114 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

vided with, or required to make, a summary of each even- 
ing's work. These would be exceedingly useful for purposes 
of review during the summer and before the classes re- 
commence after vacations. 

This brings into consideration the question of suitable 
textbooks. There is a fortune for the enterprising publisher 
who will give to the schools a series of suitable texts for the 
study of those engaged in specific trades. These books will 
have to be written by men who know the shops, assisted 
perhaps by those who know how to present a subject in the 
most effective manner. Examples of such books are the 
"Lowell Textile Arithmetic," previously referred to, and 
the "Manuals for Apprentices" published by the Brown 
and Sharp Manufacturing Company and the Grand Trunk 
Railway System. If books of this character were available, 
it would lead to much less waste in teaching and the eco- 
nomic results would be immeasurably greater. 

The organization of industrial classes will vary accord- 
ing to the extent and character of the industries carried on. 
The town with one industry presents a problem that is not 
difficult to solve. The educational authorities and the 
leaders of the industry can easily be brought together and a 
workable cooperative scheme readily devised to permeate 
the whole educational system. The same principle applies 
here as elsewhere. Nothing definite and worth while can 
be done without this cooperation, and the sooner the four 
parties to the contract — the public, the educational au- 
thorities, the employers, and the employees — recognize 
this, the sooner we shall achieve results which will mutu- 
ally benefit all concerned. 

The town in which there is a large number of small but 
important industries presents a rather complicated prob- 
lem. First of all, an accurate investigation should be under- 
taken with the object of discovering the number of persons 
engaged in, and the prospects offered by, each industry. 
The industries should then be grouped, and instruction 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 115 

arranged, first, for the more important groups, then for the 
less important, and finally, for the individual trades in each 
group. This investigation must be accurate. No mere gen- 
eral idea will be sufficiently reliable as a basis for action. In 
a town previously referred to, forty-three trades were repre- 
sented in the evening school and only two students were 
electricians. In a day industrial school about to be estab- 
lished in that city, it was proposed to make electricity one 
of the practical subjects, owing to a general idea that it was 
one of the chief industries. 

Let us take an example of a successful organization in a 
small town. 

Montrose in Scotland has a population of 12,500 people. 
Here, as in practically every town in the British Isles, it is 
recognized that provision must be made for the education 
of those whose elementary training in the primary schools 
is either unfinished or has lapsed, and hence the first divi- 
sion in the evening school scheme of this town is an elemen- 
tary class, and students are not admitted into the higher 
courses unless they have passed through, or are capable of 
passing through, this elementary section. Pupils who are 
compelled by law to attend the day schools are not admitted 
to the evening schools. 

The second division is comprised of various courses, — 
domestic, commercial, industrial, science, and art, — and 
each course contains several subdivisions. Students are 
admitted to these if they are over sixteen years of age or if 
they hold the certificate granted on passing through the 
elementary section. 

The third division is really supplementary and recog- 
nizes the social and physical side of the work. Courses, 
which are open only to those in attendance at one or more 
of the other classes, are organized in physical drill, gym- 
nastics and swimming, all under competent direction. 

The organization required in a large city is in some re- 
spects simpler in others more complex than that possible 



116 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

in the smaller towns. There is much more to be done 
but there is a larger amount of money available for the pur- 
pose, and there is generally, with some exceptions, a larger 
and broader public spirit. Probably the best examples of 
organized schemes for large cities are those afforded by 
Leeds (England; population, 1901, 428,968) and Manches- 
ter (England; population, 543,969). In both cases there 
has been a most careful study of the industrial conditions 
and a definite attempt made to devise plans which are well 
coordinated with the general system, and which utilize 
every existing agency to meet the needs of all grades of 
workers. In the case of Leeds the courses end in the uni- 
versity, and in that of Manchester in the municipal schools 
of technology, art, and commerce, three separate institu- 
tions which are all aflSliated with the University of Man- 
chester. In Leeds the industrial courses provide instruc- 
tion for those engaged in the following trades : — 

1. Engineering trades: (a) mechanical; (6) electrical. 

2. Electrical industries. 

3. Building trades. 

4. Leather and boot trades. 

5. Clothing trades. 

6. Chemical and allied industries. 

7. Mining. 

8. Textile industries. 

9. Printing. 
10. Farriery. 

The organization of the Manchester scheme is shown on 
the opposite page in diagrammatic form. 

Notwithstanding the perfection of organization and the 
facilities offered, the number of pupils taking advantage of 
the classes is not as satisfactory as the promoters desire. 
In both cities the day school plants are used for evening 
classes, and though each has elaborate buildings devoted 
to technology, Manchester particularly so, yet the enroll- 
ment consists almost entirely of evening school students. 



GRADE III. CENTRAL INSTITUTIONS 



Municipal School 

OF 

Technology 



Specialized instruc- 
tion in science and 
technology 



Municipal School 
of Commerce 

AND LaNQUAQES 



Specialized instruc- 
tion in commercial 
subjects and in lan- 
guages 



Municipal School 
OF Art 



Specialized instruc- 
tion in art and de- 
sign 



Municipal School 
OF Domestic Econ- 
omy AND Cookeby 



Specialized instruc- 
tion in domestic 
subjects 
(Day classes only] 




GRADE II. BRANCH TECHNICAL SCHOOLS, BRANCH COMMERCIAL 
SCHOOLS, BRANCH ART CLASSES, AND EVENING SCHOOLS OF 
DOMESTIC ECONOMY 



Second, Third, and 
Fourth Year Tech- 
nical Courses, 
to meet the require- 
ments of all classes 
of technical students 



Second, Third, and 
Fourth Year Com- 
mercial Courses, 
to meet the require- 
ments of juniors in 
business houses 



First and Second 
Year Art Courses, 
leading up to the 
instruction at the 
Municipal School of 
Art 



Specialized Distrac- 
tion in Domestic 
Subjects, for wo- 
men and girls over 
sixteen years of age 




GRADE I. EVENING CONTINUATION SCHOOLS 



First and Second Year 
Technical Courses, for 
boys engaged in manual 
occupations 



First and Second Year 
Commercial Courses, 
for boys and girls engaged 
in commercial or distribu- 
tive occupations 



First and Second Year 
Domestic Courses, for 
girls desirous of receiv- 
ing a training in domes- 
tic subjects 



PREPARATORY COURSE 

For boys and girls who desire to improve their general education or who are not 
suflficiently prepared to take advantage of the above courses 



118 mDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

In Manchester there are 30,000 pupils of all ages attending 
the classes, and courses are offered in thirteen groups. In 
the School of Technology separate and distinct courses are 
offered in one hundred and three subjects. 

Throughout the whole of England and Wales twenty- 
two per thousand of the population attend evening classes 
which are under Government inspection. This does not 
take into consideration a very large number of private 
institutions which offer instruction in various subjects. 
This proportion is greater than in any other country in the 
world where compulsion does not exist. 

The effective working of these classes depends largely 
upon the active cooperation of those connected with the 
industries. For this reason industrial representatives are 
being called upon to take a place on the organizing bodies. 
The Ontario Industrial Education Act, passed in the legis- 
lative session of 1910, provides for advisory industrial and 
commercial committees before classes and schools can be 
established. These committees have wide powers. On the 
one hand, school boards are protesting that these powers 
are too great, and on the other, the committees say that 
they are hampered by the academic traditions that domi- 
nate the older educational authorities. These bodies have 
been established in a large number of towns, and in every 
case are doing excellent work, which could not have been 
done by the older authority, owing to the lack of direct 
representation of capital and labor. The committees are 
composed first of six members of the Board of Education, 
who elect six additional members — three employers and 
three employees. The Manchester scheme provides for 
a separate committee for each group of industries. 

The experience of Germany and other Continental coun- 
tries tends to prove that the general educational authority 
is not the body best fitted to have the sole control of the 
system of industrial education. On the other hand, that 
experience shows also that its entire removal from this 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 119 

authority is not conducive to its most eflScient develop- 
ment. This, of course, is largely due to the fact that indus- 
trial schools have two sides — the educational and the 
industrial — which cannot be separated, as they merge 
one into the other. One requires knowledge and experi- 
ence of educational methods and practice, and the other 
intimate acquaintance with the needs and requirements 
of industry. 

The experience of other countries also shows that it is 
not possible to build up a satisfactory system of industrial 
education unless the elementary and secondary education 
is sound and eflScient. It is probably for this reason that 
the Germans in their scientific organization have found it 
advisable to secure the cooperation of two administrative 
bodies, one having charge of educational matters and the 
other of industrial affairs. Such cooperation is universal 
throughout all the German States. This is intended to 
secure two things: first, that the instruction shall be of the 
kind needed by the industry, and second, that the educa- 
tional methods employed are those best calculated to bring 
about the ends desired. The weakness of the plan as ap- 
plied in America will be that the representatives on these 
committees of the boards of education are by no means 
educational experts, while the representatives of the indus- 
tries are chosen for the reason that they are industrial ex- 
perts. The principal of the school to some extent will be 
able to correct this. He should always have a seat on the 
committee, but in a democratic organization could not 
expect the right to vote. 

Let us now consider various other forms of supplemen- 
tary education which are open to the industrial worker. 

There is a decided trend in educational affairs towards 
that form known as the "correspondence school." Here 
the way has been largely shown by a commercial organ- 
ization of world-wide reputation. Contrary, perhaps, to 



120 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

the usual opinion, it seems to me that correspondence 
instruction, when it is properly organized and controlled for 
the benefit of the student, is one of the most useful forms 
that this supplementary education can take. This proviso 
cuts out the commercial enterprise maintained solely for 
the benefit of its stockholders. 

Probably the best example of a public organization along 
these lines is the university extension division of the Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin. This is one of the coordinate colleges 
of the university, and consists of four departments, the 
fourth of which is known as the "Correspondence Study 
Department." In it instruction is given in five main divi- 
sions : — 

1. Special vocational studies. 

2. Elementary school branch. 

3. High school and preparatory subjects. 

4. Special advanced work. 

5. Regular university work. 

In all, thirty-five departments of the university are 
represented. They embrace two hundred and six distinct 
courses of study, and nearly all can be taken by corre- 
spondence. The students are laborers, apprentices, farmers, 
skilled mechanics, clerks, salesmen, stenographers, drug- 
gists, bankers, teachers, lawyers, clergymen, and doctors. 
In addition to the instruction by correspondence, local 
representatives of the university are appointed, where the 
number of the students is sufliciently largq, and classes are 
formed to supplement the correspondence instruction. 
In marked contrast to the commercial type of school, only 
about five per cent of the students discontinue their work 
before completing the courses. There are over two thou- 
sand students registered for special vocational studies. In 
addition to the local representatives a traveling professor 
has been appointed. 

The President of the University, in speaking of these 
courses, says: — 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 121 

But in order to make this more successful it was necessary to 
get the cooperation of the merchants and manufacturers. There- 
fore we came into Milwaukee and presented the case to the manu- 
facturers of this city. Some of them said, "We will give you an 
opportunity to meet the men in our shops "; a number of them 
offered quarters for classrooms; and some of them went so far as 
to say, "We will pay the men for the time they are receiving 
classroom instruction." In Milwaukee at the present time we 
have more than one thousand students doing vocational work 
in twenty different manufactories. Thus the defects of corre- 
spondence work have been remedied, and instead of ninety-five 
per cent dropping out of a course before its completion, less than 
five per cent do so. Already we are told by the merchants and 
manufacturers of Milwaukee that the effects of this movement 
are seen in the increased eflSciency of their workmen; that it 
furnishes them better-trained foremen and in greater numbers. 

A number of other universities, notably Chicago, Kan- 
sas, Nebraska, and Minnesota, have followed the same plan 
and afford brilliant examples of higher institutions that 
recognize to the fullest extent their obligations to the people 
from whom they largely draw their support. In providing 
the workman with the instruction he needs, his convenience 
and his necessities should both be taken into consideration. 
Unfortunately, even with the most perfect system of day 
and evening schools, too many will not be able to avail 
themselves of the facilities offered. 

Another excellent example of the correspondence school 
is that conducted under the auspices of the International 
Typographical Union. This organization fought and won 
a severe battle for the eight-hour day, and owing to the de- 
sire to influence the new-found leisure of its members, and 
to counteract the specialization that was preventing any 
real learning of the trade in its entirety, a committee was 
appointed to devise a scheme of education that would be 
acceptable to the fifty thousand members of the union. 
The scheme had to meet the needs of both the expert 
printer in the large city and the mere beginner in a back- 
woods town. The course was not designed, primarily, to 



122 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

make printers, but to give to all engaged in the trade an 
education supplementary to that of the printing-oflSce. The 
course of instruction consists of thirty-seven lessons and 
costs the student twenty dollars. Under commercial con- 
ditions and at prevailing prices this cost would be at least 
sixty or seventy dollars. It is open to both unionists and 
non-unionists, the only condition being that students must 
be compositors, either journeymen or apprentices. Dur- 
ing 1909-10 the school had sixteen thousand pupils en- 
rolled. This is a perfectly legitimate and desirable form 
of trade-union activity. Industrial education is one of 
labor's rights, and as such should form part of every union 
propaganda. Seven other unions have taken up work of 
this character. 

There are a number of very small towns which require 
special methods. Many are without even manual training 
for the boys or household science for the girls, owing to the 
expense of equipment and the difficulty of obtaining teach- 
ers, to say nothing of the general apathy of the people. 
The only hope for the ambitious industrial worker in a 
number of these towns is the correspondence method or 
the organization of a cooperative scheme by which three 
or four towns on an electric or steam railway may combine 
to engage a teacher between them, the teacher to spend a 
day or night, or two, in each locality according to the 
requirements of the constituency. In this way the expenses 
could be shared and a new and beneficial influence pro- 
jected into the community. There is scarcely a State or 
Province where a number of groups could not be organ- 
ized on this basis. 

Traveling dairy schools have been established in some 
Provinces and are doing much useful work. It is a ques- 
tion for debate whether the agricultural college is not 
doing more for the farmer by taking the college to him 
than by attempting to bring him to the college. In the 
county of Hampshire (England) the education authority 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 123 

maintains a dairy school and traveling forge, which travels 
for forty weeks during the year and gives a ten-day course 
in each district. These courses are proving very popular 
and are meeting the needs of the people. 

In Prussia there have been established in factory dis- 
tricts traveling courses for masters and foremen. The cost 
is large and is partly defrayed by the State. The instruc- 
tion is given by traveling teachers during the winter months 
and is sometimes connected with the trade schools of the 
locality. In 1908, nearly a thousand courses were given in 
forty-eight different localities, and the movement is rapidly 
growing. 

In this connection it should even be possible to establish 
travehng workshops. A large car could be fitted up with- 
out much difficulty as a carpenter, machine, or blacksmith 
shop, or as an ordinary classroom, and stationed on a sid- 
ing for a month or six weeks, and, after giving instruction to 
all who cared to avail themselves of it, be moved to the 
next locaUty. 

Why should there not be generally organized schools for 
workmen who are unemployed during the winter months? 
In Chicago there is such a school held for four months 
during the winter for unemployed carpenters, and the 
practice might well be extended to other trades. In these 
winter courses opportunities should be given not only for 
improvement in the trade in which the workman is at 
present engaged, but facilities should be offered for learning 
a new trade. Seasonal workers would be in a much better 
position if they possessed the ability to work at two voca- 
tions, one of which is busy while the other is slack. 

Industrial trade museums, scattered through various 
parts of the country, are a distinct feature of the German 
system, and a feature to which as yet we have paid little 
attention. These may fairly be regarded as a supplemen- 
tary form of industrial education. Their influence in the 
development of trade and industry, in the elevation of taste. 



124 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

the inspiring of ambition to excel, and in many other ways, 
can scarcely be overestimated. Take the Gewerbe Museum 
in Nuremberg, for example. According to the prospectus, 
the work of that institution is carried on under eight dif- 
ferent divisions : — 

1. The collection of patterns or samples, which consists 
of more than 10,000 specimens of ancient and modern exam- 
ples of works in wood, metal, clay, glass, leather, and paper; 
also woven fabrics, embroideries, laces, etc. Certain of 
these objects can be obtained on loan. 

2. The collection of designs, which consists of some 
70,000 sheets of illustrations of art industries of all nations. 
These mounted sheets are classified under various heads 
and arranged in cases for easy reference by manufacturers 
and students. To procure these designs, recourse has been 
made to illustrated works on ornament and art work- 
manship, and to the best serial publications of all coun- 
tries. Opportunity is afforded of consulting and copying 
them, and the officials undertake to prepare special designs 
for fees, to be arranged. 

3. The library and reading-room contain upwards of 
fifteen thousand volumes of art, industrial, and technical 
works; also about two hundred journals and periodicals 
relating to these subjects, which are taken in regularly and 
filed. In connection with this section there is an extensive 
series of foreign directories, trade catalogues and address- 
books of other countries. 

The above three departments are open free to the public. 

4. Mechanical and Technical Division — 

(l) The office for specialized trade information — 
(a) Patents, merchandise marks, and trade- 
marks. Here patents can be secured and 
trademarks registered. 
(6) For furnishing information on all kinds of 
motors, machines, tools, raw products, and 
manufactured goods. 



SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION 125 

(c) For supplying literary advice and references, 
from technical works and replies to general 
technical questions. 
(2) The experimental research department arranged 
for the trial and testing of gas, benzine, and 
petroleum motors, steam engines, water wheels, 
turbines, electro-motors and all labor-saving ma- 
chinery, at agreed charges. 

5. The chemical laboratory for investigations of all 
kinds relating to technical and industrial chemistry. It is 
prepared to undertake analyses and to carry out more 
extensive researches for fees, to be arranged. The oflSicial 
testing station for paper is in connection with this branch. 

6. A permanent exhibition of modern industry and art. 
There are also held in connection with this department 
temporary exhibitions of special departments of manufac- 
tures. 

7. Issue of the official organ of the Bavarian Industrial 
Museum. 

8. The delivery of public addresses and lectures during 
the winter months, embracing all subjects of art applied 
to industry and every branch of manufacturing activity. 

An interesting feature in the activity of this museum is 
the " Gewerbe-Archiv " or factory register, which includes 
an account of all the more important industrial establish- 
ments in Bavaria contributed by the manufacturers them- 
selves on a special form. The particulars given are as fol- 
lows: The name and address of the firm; when founded; 
articles produced; whether special to this undertaking; 
character of motive power employed; nature of machinery 
used and the number of each kind of machine; patents, 
trademarks, etc., owned by the firm; exhibitions in which 
the firm has taken part and prizes and medals awarded; 
number of workpeople employed and annual value of pro- 
duction. Many thousands of manufacturers have contrib- 
uted to this register. Every effort is made to keep it up to 



126 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

date and to render it accurate and complete as a record of 
the whole of the industries of Bavaria. 

Museums of this type, though, of course, on a less com- 
prehensive scale, are numerous throughout the German 
cities. The German people attach the greatest importance 
to them as an important factor in the development of trade 
and industry. 

Many phases of this question of supplementary educa- 
tion have been left untouched. It is many-sided and bristles 
with problems and complications. These are all capable of 
solution if the same acumen, business foresight, and wise 
management be brought to bear upon them as has been 
displayed in the building-up of the industries. As Mr. 
Arthur D. Dean says: — 

In considering a State policy for providing industrial education, 
it is necessary to keep constantly in mind one basic principle: If 
industrial education means a re-directing and adapting of our 
education to fit the economic and social needs of our people, then 
it is a problem that has no single solution; there will be as many 
school classifications as there are groups of industries; nearly as 
many solutions as there are types of communities; and there is no 
single inflexible course of study and no single line of procedure. 



VII 

APPRENTICESHIP 

"The King is dead! Long live the King!" 

One of the main arguments used to advance the cause 
of industrial education is, that the apprenticeship system is 
dead, and that the trades and industries stand largely in 
need of a new type of education which will give the skill 
and all-roundedness formerly acquired through that sys- 
tem. It is almost impossible to read an article or listen to 
a speech on the subject of industrial training without 
finding this argument prominent. 

There is danger that the energetic propaganda now 
being waged for industrial education in schools, will cause 
the educational features of a rational apprenticeship 
system to be ignored and lost sight of. If industrial edu- 
cation had no other claim to national consideration than 
the supposition that apprenticeship is dead, its position 
would not be a very sound one. Fortunately there are a 
number of more vital arguments, and it scarcely needs the 
support of one which is true only to a slight extent. 

When it is stated that apprenticeship is dead, the con- 
ception that is formed is that of the system as it grew up 
and flourished under the fostering care of the trade guilds 
of the Middle Ages. There would be as much reason in 
saying that the science of illumination is dead because our 
modern system of electric lighting bears little relationship 
to the rushlight of one or two centuries ago, or that steam 
transportation is dead because the modern locomotive can 
scarcely be recognized when compared with the first 
engine invented, as there is in saying that apprenticeship 
is dead because the present type, rendered necessary by 



128 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

the development of modern industry and the subdivision 
of labor, bears no resemblance to that in use when pro- 
duction was carried on under entirely different conditions. 

Whatever defects the old system had, and they are 
readily admitted, the merit must be accorded to it of hav- 
ing produced a race of mechanics and artisans possessing 
the highest type of skill. Dr. Snedden, Commissioner of 
Education for the State of Massachusetts, has said: "The 
apprenticeship system, as interpreted by some of the great 
vocations of the Middle Ages, was imdoubtedly the most 
perfect system of vocational education that the world has 
ever seen." 

Long after the guilds had outlived their usefulness, and 
their functions had become unnecessary or had been ab- 
sorbed by other agencies, the apprenticeship system con- 
tinued, but in a condition practically shorn of all that had 
made it effective. The English guilds have disappeared, 
but in, Continental countries, notably Germany and Aus- 
tria, persistent efforts are being made to revive their 
powers and restore their usefulness. 

Membership of a guild was always an absolute guaranty 
of thorough craftsmanship, which everybody recognized. 
It has seemed to me that here is one of the lost opportuni- 
ties of trade-unionism. If the possession of a union card 
were regarded as incontrovertible evidence that its owner 
had learned his trade in a recognized manner and had not 
stolen it, and that he was a skilled craftsman, much good 
would result to the industry, and a great deal of unfounded 
prejudice against unions would be removed. 

At present, as far as I have been able to learn, there is no 
adequate test of a man's ability before his admission to the 
union. Of course, under present conditions, if this plan were 
adopted, the unions would not include the majority of the 
workers, but grades could be established and examinations 
conducted, on the passing of which men would rise from one 
grade to the next higher. The wages of men in the different 



APPRENTICESHIP 129 

grades would vary, and it would be necessary, from the 
union point of view, to make and enforce regulations con- 
cerning the number of men in each grade allowed to each 
employer, in order that there should not be a preponder- 
ance of low-paid labor. The unions should make a study of 
the powers and functions of the ancient guilds and seek to 
absorb the best of them. 

As an illustration of the powers of the revived modern 
guilds in Europe, particularly in regard to the apprentice- 
ship system, let us take the methods adopted in Austria. 
The laws of 1883 and 1897 made efforts to bring these 
methods into harmony with modern industrial conditions. 
The provisions of these laws are still in force, and what is 
more, are in operation. By law the duties of these guilds 
are said to be: — 

1. To promote harmonious relations between employers 
and workmen in regard to the organization of the labor 
forces, the provision of guild shelters or lodges (for travel- 
ing workmen), and finding employment for those out of 
work. 

2. To provide for a satisfactory apprenticeship system, 
provide regulations regarding the industrial and moral in- 
struction of apprentices, length of service, examinations, etc. 

3. To create arbitration committees for the settlement 
of disputes. 

4. To promote the establishment of, and themselves to 
establish and maintain, trade schools. 

5. To care for sick employees and apprentices. 

6. To make an annual report of the work done. 

The regulations drawn up for apprentices impose upon 
the employer the duty of looking after the morals of the 
apprentice both inside and outside the shop or factory, and 
thus one of the most desirable features of the old system 
is being restored. He is also required to allow apprentices, 
who are not free from the obligation to attend an industrial 
continuation school, the necessary time for that attendance. 



i30 INDUSTEIAL EDUCATION 

and is made legally responsible for it. In Germany much 
the same method is being adopted and the same class of 
legislation has been enacted. In Europe, then, the system 
of apprenticeship is regarded as a factor in industrial edu- 
cation and as a matter worthy of Government regulation. 

The old system, however, possessed many undesirable 
features. It was uneconomic. The service required was 
too long, and in the latter years of that service, though 
doing the work of a journeyman, the youth received the pay 
of an apprentice. Looked at in the light of our modern sys- 
tem of production and distribution, it is fortunate for the 
workers that it has passed. It was unfortunate for work- 
men that during its gradual decay nothing was devised 
satisfactorily to take its place and that it was allowed to 
live a lingering death, in methods that neither gave effi- 
cient training to the employee nor skilled workmen to the 
employer. The term "apprentice" was retained, but it 
was a misnomer, and the so-called apprentice became in 
reality a helper, a laborer, knocked from pillar to post and 
receiving no adequate instruction. The whole genius of 
the shop was against him. 

The boy wishes to obtain all possible information in the 
shortest possible time, and he also desires to get an all- 
round knowledge of his trade; that is, an opportunity to 
work in every department of the industry. The foreman, 
representing the employer, and taking a narrow view of his 
own interests, works for economy, for cheapness and speed 
of production. He thinks these ends can best be achieved 
by restricting the boy to one machine and to one operation. 
The boy wishes to push himself forward, and the foreman 
only responds under the greatest pressure. The spirit of 
the foreman rules the shop, and it would not bode well for 
the journeyman who, out of his good nature and sympathy 
with the boy's desires, enters on his time-card, "Thirty 
minutes spent in showing Johnny Jones the how and the 
why of the Smith job." 



APPRENTICESHIP 131 

As evidence of the inadequacy of the instruction received 
by the apprentice in the machine shops, the principal of a 
"technological school," established by the Baltiniore and 
Ohio Railroad Company, said in 1886 : — 

Investigation in the shops by conversation and observation has 
shown that many boys or young men had completed, or nearly 
completed, their apprenticeship without being able to tell the 
difference between cast and wrought iron, without knowing 
whether steel is a native or manufactured product, and equally 
ignorant of many other simple though important and significant 
facts which are intimately related to their trades. 

The causes which brought about the decline of the old 
apprenticeship system are to be sought for in the social and 
economic changes forced upon industry by the extensive 
use of machinery. These causes may be summarized as 
follows : — 

1. The growth of population has rendered it profitable 
to produce goods of all kinds on the largest possible scale. 
This prevents any personal contact between employer and 
employee. Apprenticeship is only good so long as the ap- 
prentice has time to learn and the employer, or some one 
deputed by him for this specific purpose, has time to teach. 

2. The substitution of machine for hand labor, the ex- 
tensive use of automatic machinery for performing single 
and special operations, in which as a rule no skill is required, 
and the subdivision of labor have all played their part. It 
seems to be a fact that for the great bulk of the workmen 
in the factories, who perform the purely mechanical opera- 
tions, little knowledge beyond the process on which each is 
engaged is either required for, or is necessary to, the success- 
ful performance of the special operation. It is scarcely con- 
sidered necessary even that the operative shall know any- 
thing about his machine, as in a large number of cases a 
special mechanic is provided to make all adjustments. 
Those who have a wide knowledge of any industry are 
generally those who direct the work. To call men shoe- 



132 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

makers who make the hundredth part of a shoe, or cabinet- 
makers who can only turn a table leg, is to convey alto- 
gether wrong impressions. Indeed, in these days it is diffi- 
cult to define any particular trade, and those engaged 
therein find the definition no easier than does the outsider. 
As long ago as 1900 the following definition of a machinist 
was adopted by resolution of the International Association 
of Machinists and the National Metal Trades* Associa- 
tion : — 

A machinist is a competent general workman, competent floor 
hand, competent lathe hand, competent vise hand, competent 
planer hand, competent shaper hand, competent milling machine 
hand, competent slotting machine hand, competent die sinker, 
competent boring mill hand, competent toolmaker, and compe- 
tent linotype hand. To be considered a competent hand in either 
class he (the machinist) shall be able to take any piece of work per- 
taining to his class, with the drawings or blue-prints, and prose- 
cute the work to successful completion within a reasonable time. 
He shall also have served a regular apprenticeship or have worked 
at the trade four years. 

It is probable that if this definition were revised in the 
light of the industrial expansion of the past ten years, it 
would include a number of additional divisions. 

In the Chicago packing-houses the men have been 
graded in more than thirty distinct operations, and twenty 
rates of pay established. An ordinary laborer can be effi- 
ciently trained to perform any one of these operations in 
three or four days. In the old days a cattle butcher, with 
the assistance of one or two helpers, was able to kill and 
dress a bullock, and it required from three to five years to 
become proficient. Now the all-round butcher is only 
to be found in villages and very small towns, where special- 
ization and the subdivision of labor have not made such 
inroads on old trade practices. 

In carpentry and other forms of woodwork the introduc- 
tion of machinery has brought about remarkable changes. 
Only the old house carpenter and men who have learned 



APPRENTICESHIP 133 

their trade in the villages, smaller towns, and in Europe 
can now make doors, shutters, sashes, or frames with any 
degree of dexterity, finish, or accuracy. That work has 
gone to the planing mill, and the work of the carpen- 
ter generally consists in fitting its products together. It 
is even possible to buy a whole house at the mill, with all 
the parts marked and numbered ready for fitting. It is a 
waste of effort to fight against this minute subdivision, 
which must be regarded as inevitable, though highly un- 
desirable from the point of view of the all-round develop- 
ment of the worker. The industry gains and the worker 
suffers. Ruskin says: — 

It is not, truly speaking, the labor which is divided but the 
man — divided iuto mere segments of men — broken into small 
fragments and crumbs of life, so that all the little piece of intelli- 
gence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin or a nail, 
but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a 
nail. 

3. Many employers do not want apprentices. Others 
say that they cannot get them. Others, again, complain 
bitterly that their numbers are restricted by the unions. 
Manufacturers have probably themselves largely to blame 
for this limitation, owing to their failure to teach the ap- 
prentice his trade, and their practice of using untrained 
labor where possible to avoid the employment of journey- 
men, but it is very much open to question whether there 
are even as many apprentices as the rules of the unions 
allow. The journeymen tailors* union permits each journey- 
man to have one apprentice, yet the returns in 1903 show 
that there were only 6^5 apprentices reported, while the 
membership of the union was about 14,500, and investiga- 
tion shows that there are but few apprentices in the tailor- 
ing trades to-day. 

The right of the unions to make these regulations can- 
not logically be denied. They have just as much right to 
be seriously interested in the question of entrance into 



134 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

their trades as the doctor, lawyer, or minister has to make 
regulations and to inquire into the qualifications of those 
entering the professions to which they belong. Not much 
objection is raised to making the professions close cor- 
porations, but directly the same process is applied to the 
industries an alarming outcry is made. Those manufac- 
turers who object to taking apprentices do so largely on 
the ground that they do not pay, but they have probably 
formed this opinion on insufficient evidence and badly 
organized trials of the system. No instances are known 
where a properly organized system of apprenticeship, care- 
fully designed to train the worker, has been established and 
has failed to pay in every sense. Mr. E. P. BuUard, of the 
BuUard Tool Machine Company, distinctly states that 
apprentice training pays "morally, ethically, and finan- 
cially in every way." 

The "Printing Trade News," New York, says: — 

The matter of efficiency is a devious one and the economic con- 
duct of a printing establishment is arrived at in various ways. 
Take the case of the Donnelley Company, of Chicago. This com- 
pany incurs an annual expense of $10,000 in the maintenance of 
its school for apprentices. And yet in the increased efficiency 
of workers thus obtained, and the consequent efficiency of the 
plant, this apparently altruistic scheme pays. 

Mr. Charles Booth, in his "Life and Labor in London," 
speaking of London employers, comes to the conclusion 
that the rank and file of them find that it pays best to 
trust to being able to obtain skilled workmen who have 
been trained by some one else; in other words, to shirk 
their share of the common burden — a form of economic 
parasitism. He concludes that practically the whole of 
the London employers in several trades are parasitical 
upon the provincial employers, as regards the work of in- 
dustrial training. This is probably just as true of the large 
American cities. Foreman after foreman, when asked 
where he gets his skilled workmen, will say, "Oh, they 



APPRENTICESHIP 135 

come to us," not mentioning any special inducements 
offered to encourage the coming. 

Another objection of the employer, which, perhaps, has a 
sounder basis, is the fact that it is difficult to get boys to 
stay. In the glass bottle industry, where the indenture 
system largely prevails, union employers frequently com- 
plain that apprentices do not serve the five years* term, 
but run away and seek employment in non-union shops. 
The same complaint is made in other industries. In this as 
in many other walks of life there is needed an entirely new 
sense of the sacredness of a contract, wisely and voluntarily 
entered into. No employer in these days would think of 
prosecuting a refractory apprentice for breach of contract, 
as an unwilling apprentice would be a constant source of 
economic loss and a perpetual source of annoyance. There 
is no law which will permit the binding out of a boy and 
compel him to remain at the work to which he is assigned. 
There should be a public opinion in the shops which would 
render it impossible for an apprentice, who was receiving a 
square deal from his employer, to leave his employ and be 
comfortable in any other position while his contract was 
still unfulfilled. 

4. Journeymen have no desire to instruct apprentices. 
They have neither the time nor the inclination. Generally 
the apprentice is unknown to the man under whom he is 
placed, and is too frequently looked upon as an interloper 
who, when he has become proficient, will take the place of 
the man who has instructed him. However, in the present 
condition of things there is little need of any help, even of 
that which the journeyman may give. The tendency is to 
turn the apprentice into a "specialist," that is, to restrict 
him to the working of a single machine which performs one 
operation, or turns out one special part of the finished 
product. 

There is a marked difference between the professional 
specialist and the industrial specialist. The professional 



136 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

specialist has been thoroughly well grounded in all the 
underlying principles of his profession and out of the depths 
of his knowledge selects his specialty. The mechanic or 
artisan, on the other hand, is all too frequently a specialist 
because he can do nothing else, and remains a specialist on 
account of his ignorance. 

5. The boy is disinclined to bind himself. Freedom is 
the watchword of the age. MobiHty has always been one 
of labor's chief assets, and the boy is no less anxious 
than the man to be free to move as his whim and fancy 
dictate. The modern boy dislikes to be controlled, and in 
the present prosperous state of the country does not hesi- 
tate to " throw up his job " rather than carry out an unpleas- 
ant task. The terms "bound" or "serving" are thought to 
be highly objectionable, and the old-fashioned "master" 
and "man" have been euphemistically transformed into 
"employer" and "employee." Lack of wise parental con- 
trol has had a great deal to do with bringing about this 
state of affairs. The old maxim that "the child should be 
seen and not heard" is entirely out of date. 

6. The length of time previously thought to be necessary 
for the learning of a trade has also done its share in bring- 
ing about the decline of apprenticeship. In many indus- 
tries the interests of the employer have been mainly con- 
sidered, and the low wages paid to the apprentice during 
his latter years have not reconciled him to the service. In 
most cases the practice prevails of paying the apprentice a 
fractional part of the journeyman's wages even where the 
work turned out is of the same quality, and boys naturally 
resent this. The age at which boys enter industry is much 
higher than formerly, but notwithstanding this increase in 
age, wages have remained stationary or nearly so. Both 
the employers and the unions have been responsible for 
the excessive length of apprenticeship. The former desired 
to obtain cheap labor and the latter to prevent their ranks 
from becoming overcrowded. 



APPRENTICESHIP 137 

7. There is a widespread impression that a trade can 
be learned without apprenticeship, and indeed in these 
days it does seem possible to learn a trade by the system of 
casual labor. In an investigation of 124 cases in London, 
it was found that in the building trades 55 had been 
regularly apprenticed, 27 had been trained by their fath- 
ers, and 36 had picked it up, or as the labor phrase has it, 
had "stolen" it. 

This process of "stealing a trade" is a great economic 
loss to the employer and to the industry and is a still 
greater loss to organized labor itself. The plan is some- 
what as follows. A boy or man starts work on a certain 
machine or process and in a short time demonstrates his 
incapacity. After spoiling a quantity of work and disor- 
ganizing the factory, he is indignantly "fired" by the 
foreman. He is now in possession of a small modicum of 
experience, and with this as a basis gets another "job " and 
repeats the same process, but in this case the period of his 
employment on the one machine or operation is somewhat 
longer, but his dismissal eventually follows. By going 
through this procedure several times he at length reaches 
the stage where he can retain his position as long as he 
requires it. 

In newer countries like America, where the demand for 
workers is so great, the proportion of men who thus "pick 
up" their trades is much higher than in England or Conti- 
nental Europe. This state of affairs exists very largely in 
the building trades, many carpenters, bricklayers, and 
plumbers never having been thoroughly trained. Out of 
fifty men employed on one building as carpenters, there 
was only one who could lay out a staircase. 

An editorial in the official journal of the plumbers com- 
plains : — 

There will always be cities or towns enough that are unorgan- 
ized that will turn out helpers and apprentices in numbers large 
enough to supply the demand. . . . The scab shop and non- 



138 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

association employers will also continue to manufacture plumbers 
at a compound rate. . . . The journeyman is also responsible to a 
great extent for this condition of affairs, because in years past, 
when plumbing was considered more of an art than it is to-day, 
and the wages were comparatively higher, the journeyman, to 
use the language of the street, "got the swelled head " and thought 
he must have a boy to carry his overalls around, and to shine his 
tools for him, and walk on the other side of the street with his tool- 
bag, lest society should see him with a dirty carpet-sack on his 
shoulder. 

This system of picking up a trade has a decided influence 
upon the moral fibre and citizenship of the workman. A 
man who has been thoroughly trained along any distinct 
line, and has achieved, through that training, an intelli- 
gent technical skill, looks upon his trade as something wor- 
thy of his utmost efforts and he does his best work, hindered, 
of course, by the commercial necessity for speed. On the 
other hand, the man who has stolen his trade will regard it 
as simply the tool, often despised, by which he obtains his 
living, and inferiority of workmanship will be perfectly 
satisfactory to him so long as it passes muster. 

There are some trades in which a system of apprentice- 
ship cannot be satisfactorily carried out. They are those 
where, by the division of labor and the use of machinery, the 
functions of the workman have been pared down to pro- 
cesses which are so easily learned that any prolonged period 
of training is not only unnecessary but economically waste- 
ful. In the textile trades modern automatic looms for weav- 
ing are so easily managed that a case is known where a girl, 
without any previous experience, learned to run fourteen 
looms within a week, and in many other industries the 
average rate of wages can be earned after two or three 
weeks' training. President Gompers of the American 
Federation of Labor, says, " Modern methods of manufac- 
ture, with their division, subdivision, and specialization, 
have to a large extent rendered nearly superfluous and 
therefore largely eliminated the all-round skilled workman." 



APPRENTICESHIP 139 

If this is true, or only partially true, is the education of 
the workman to be abandoned? There are two sides to the 
education of any man, — education for his work and edu- 
cation for his leisure, education for his living and education 
for his pleasure; and for the unskilled man whom economic 
necessity confines to the performance of one operation, the 
latter side of education will have to be stressed. Closer 
investigation will probably show that there is a type of 
instruction which will add to the earning capacity of even 
this man, by increasing both the quantity aud quality of 
his output. Information regarding the construction and 
intricacies of his machine and its adjustment for minor 
defects, some knowledge of the material in which he is 
working, some information regarding the operation he is 
performing and the part it is to play in the completed 
object, will broaden his outlook and probably induce 
him to equip himself for the next higher stage in the 
factory. 

"While this all-round skill is ceasing to be of especial 
benefit to the ordinary workman, on the other hand, econ- 
omic interdependence is becoming greater, the relationship 
of process to process and man to man is growing more com- 
plex, and it is becoming more and more important for every 
man to know many things in order to keep his activities in 
eflBcient social and vocational cooperation with those of 
others in different walks of life." 

Even for the industrial specialist there is a system of 
apprenticeship coming into vogue. It has been adopted 
by the National Association of Machine Tool Builders, and 
it assures that specialists will not only continue, but also 
that the system will be considerably extended. If a large 
majority of the workmen are to be specialists, and about 
this, judging by the modern trend, there cannot be much 
doubt, then the apprenticeship system should recognize 
this condition. Accordingly, in the "Special Apprentice- 
ship System," the period of training varies from one to two 



140 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

years, and is immediately profitable both for employer and 
employee. There is a trial period of two hundred and forty 
hours, and after successfully passing this, an engagement 
is given in one of eleven different departments, turning, 
vertical boring mill, horizontal boring mill, planing, milling, 
drilling, grinding, erecting, turret, vise, scraping. Not less 
than twelve cents an hour is paid from the commencement, 
and at the end of a year and a half twenty cents an hour can 
be earned. At the end of a year's service the apprentice can 
earn more than is paid under the ordinary scheme after 
four years' service. 

If, as is now generally conceded by all industrial authori- 
ties, apprenticeship is necessary, let us next inquire what, in 
the light of modern industry, are the features that should 
be found in an efficiently organized system. These features 
appear to be: — 

1. Apprentices should be carefully selected. It is no 
kindness to train a boy for an industry for which he has 
neither fitness nor liking. This selection should be gov- 
erned by both physical and mental considerations. The 
general practice is to take boys not younger than sixteen, 
though some manufacturers are now adopting fifteen as 
the age of entry into their works. The age of sixteen seems 
to have been fixed owing to the idea that before that age 
boys are not physically capable. If after a careful medical 
inspection boys were allowed to enter the trades at fourteen 
years of age under proper conditions and with a legal pro- 
viso regarding further education, our problem would be 
greatly simplified. The fact that a boy has reached sixteen 
years of age is no guaranty that he is either physically or 
mentally fit to enter practical industry. In addition to this 
physical fitness, boys should have passed through the eight 
grades of the elementary schools. It is probably true that 
if the industries were recruited solely from those who were 
eminently fitted, they would soon be depleted, yet means 
should be taken to prevent the entry into any particular 



APPRENTICESHIP 141 

industry of those who are manifestly unfit. Even with the 
most careful selection it will not infrequently happen that 
as the apprenticeship proceeds some boys will be found 
who do not like, or are not suited for, the particular trade. 
If this is founded on reason and not inspired by a mere 
desire for change, an opportunity should be afforded the 
young apprentice to enter another trade before it is too 
late. To prevent these misfits, a probationary period of 
suflScient length is generally advisable. 

2. The apprentice himself should be anxious to learn the 
trade and his parents should be willing for him to do so. 
No boy should be taken into a trade in deference to the 
wishes of his parents, if those wishes are in opposition to 
his own; and while it is necessary and desirable in most 
cases to secure the active and hearty cooperation of the 
parents, instances have been known where boys have 
"made good" in an industry strongly objected to by the 
parents. Forcing a boy into a trade he is unwilling to learn, 
is good neither for him nor the industry. 

3. The wages paid must be such as are mutually satis- 
factory to all parties to the agreement, and the increases 
sufficiently large and frequent to make the apprentice feel 
that his growing skill and knowledge are recognized in his 
pay envelope. In this, as in many other matters relating 
to employer and employee, more mutual trust and confi- 
dence is required. On the one hand, the apprentice must 
not be exploited for undue profit, and on the other, the 
apprentice must recognize that he owes it to his employer 
to give the greatest possible return for the efforts ex- 
pended in his training. Some firms have a system of giv- 
ing a substantial bonus on the successful completion of the 
apprenticeship. If this bonus were graduated according to 
a specified scale based on the manner in which the contract 
was fulfilled, it would probably have an effect on the behav- 
ior of the apprentice and the character of the work done. 
Such bonuses are given by the General Electric Company, 



142 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

Lynn, Massachusetts ($100), and the Allis Chalmers Com- 
pany, Cincinnati ($100). Many English firms adopt the 
same plan. 

4. Adequate instruction must be given to the appren- 
tice along every line, academic, theoretical industrial, and 
practical industrial. The greater part, if not all, of this 
academic instruction ought to be given during working 
hours, the apprentice receiving the same rate of pay as 
though he were actually working in the shop. All instruc- 
tion of apprentices is best given by men especially appointed 
for the purpose and relieved of all other duty, and not left 
to foremen or journeymen, who have too much on their 
hands to perform these other and extraneous duties satis- 
factorily. At the end of each year's apprenticeship an 
examination on the work of the year would be a test of 
progress. No apprentice should receive an increase in sal- 
ary or make any progression in the shop without success- 
fully passing this examination and presenting a certificate 
signed by the foreman testifying to a satisfactory year's 
record. The committee conducting this examination 
might with advantage contain representatives of the em- 
ployees, in order that, in the case of failure of any candi- 
date, no grounds could be given for accusations of unfair 
treatment. If the academic training is placed on the same 
footing as the actual shop work, the young apprentice will 
regard it as of equal value and be much more liable to make 
progress. With regard to this academic work different 
firms have different methods. The General Electric Com- 
pany, for instance, teach from theory to practice, while the 
New York Central lines in their schools for apprentices 
proceed from practice to theory. 

5. The period of apprenticeship should be just long 
enough, and no longer than is actually necessary, to accom- 
plish the end desired — which is to make an efficient work- 
man, and to implant the desire to achieve distinction in the 
chosen trade. Industrial life is too swift and the changes 



APPRENTICESHIP 143 

in conditions too rapid to allow of seven long years being 
spent in learning a trade that under proper conditions 
and systematic organization could be learned in three or 
four. 

6. Provision should be made for regular progress through 
the shop in order that the apprentice may have experience 
on many kinds of work and on different types of machines. 
The time for specialization comes after this process has 
been gone through, as then the apprentice will have know- 
ledge and ability to choose his specialty and not have it 
forced upon him. The status of the apprentice must be 
kept as high as possible, and the practice of running errands, 
carrying material to and from a job, and other minor tasks 
which have no distinct bearing on the trade being learned, 
should not be allowed beyond what is reasonably necessary. 
A comparatively new group of mechanics — the electrical 
workers — have very unwisely defined an apprentice as 
one "who is employed to do errands, carry material to or 
from the job, attend to lockers, and assist journeymen in 
testing." An individual so employed is not an apprentice, 
but a "helper " or laborer. The artisan himself is the one 
who reaps the greatest benefit from apprenticeship. He is 
able to work in all branches of the industry and thus to at- 
tain that industrial elasticity or adaptability which renders 
him less liable to be disturbed by internal changes and de- 
velopments in the industries. He is not dependent on a 
single machine or process, and his whole outlook on life 
assumes a different character. 

7. Apprenticeship is important enough to warrant its 
being made a matter of governmental regulation. One out- 
standing feature of the systems of industrial education in 
Europe is the protection offered to the apprentice by Gov- 
ernment ordinance. 

In Germany only those persons have the right to direct 
apprentices who are at least twenty-four years of age, and 
have themselves completed the term of apprenticeship, or 



144 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

have exercised their trade without interruption for at least 
five years either as masters, foremen, or in some similar 
capacity. The superior administrative authority can ac- 
cord this right to persons not fulfilling these conditions, but 
before doing so it must take the advice of the guild to which 
the applicant belongs. 

In England, in the reign of Elizabeth it was in general 
required that any person exercising a trade should have 
previously served an apprenticeship of seven years, but by 
later statutes this provision was abolished. 

In Switzerland, notwithstanding the opposition of the 
employers, a general apprentice law was passed on a refer- 
endum vote in 1906 by a decisive vote of the whole of the 
republic. This law is subject to adoption by each canton, 
and nearly half of these have availed themselves of its pro- 
visions. By this law any employer who teaches a trade, or 
accepts boys or girls as apprentices, must allow at least 
four hours a week during the daytime for attendance at an 
industrial school. The apprentice must have completed 
the elementary school course and be at least fourteen years 
of age. For admission to a mercantile business the mini- 
mum age is fifteen. The contract entered into, stipulates 
that it is the duty of the employer to look after the bodily 
and mental welfare of the apprentice, who must have ten 
hours' continuous rest. No overtime is allowed until six- 
teen years of age. At the end of his term the apprentice 
must pass an examination conducted by a Government 
appointed board. In case of failure he may present himself 
again after a period of six months. The enforcement of 
these provisions is in the hands of the Minister of Commerce 
and Industry. 

The State of Wisconsin has a workmen's compensation 
act, one of the provisions of which deals with apprentices. 
Any agreement must be in writing and the State Industrial 
Commission furnished with a copy. It must be agreed 
between the parties that the whole trade be taught, the 



APPRENTICESHIP 145 

time on each machine or process being specified in the 
agreement. The working time must not be more than fifty- 
five hours per week, five of which are to be given to instruc- 
tion. The indentures are to be at least for a year, and for 
those under eighteen not less than two years. It is the 
object of the new law to remedy the complaint that appren- 
tices leave before thoroughly competent, in order to get 
higher wages, and also the contention that,boys are kept at 
special work and processes instead of being given general 
instruction. 

The principle of Government intervention in labor con- 
cerns is becoming more and more common. So far the ques- 
tion of wages has been generally left to the law of demand 
and supply, but it is a significant fact that the British Gov- 
ernment found it necessary to settle the great coal strike 
(1912) by fixing a minimum wage. 

Strangely enough, the Spanish Government is engaged 
in a similar task. The owners of the Spanish mines refused 
to grant a fifteen per cent increase of wages. The Govern- 
ment, therefore, decided to prohibit temporarily the expor- 
tation of coal, to suppress the usual duties on foreign coal, 
to fix a minimum price to be charged, and to pass a bill 
making regulations for miners and establishing the prin- 
ciple of a minimum wage. 

The Governments of the various Australian States have 
taken upon themselves (by wage boards composed of an 
equal number of employers and employees approved by 
Parliament) the task of fixing wages and hours of labor, 
and strikes and lockouts are absolutely forbidden in the 
Commonwealth. Any person or organization responsible 
for anything in the nature of a strike or lockout is liable to 
a penalty of $5000 under the Federal Act. 

8. Some attempt must be made to control or direct the 
apprentice out of working hours. Intensified production 
and the gradual adoption of the eight-hour day will give 
more time for leisure, and if this be not rightfully spent 



146 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

economic loss will result from the apprentice not being in 
a fit condition to perform his shop work satisfactorily. 
There is also moral danger through visiting questionable 
resorts and engaging in doubtful amusements. It has 
already been pointed out that this moral direction of the 
apprentice was one of the features of the ancient guilds. 
He lived in his master's house, attended his master's church, 
and was altogether under his control. The whole result was 
that he became a better man, and the better the man the 
better the craftsman. Under this system the apprentice 
was a power in the land, and in the manifestations of that 
power not always amenable to the control of his master. 
When Oliver Cromwell marched his army into London to 
dissolve the Long Parliament, it was a matter of concern 
with him on which side the apprentices would be arranged. 
Some substitute should be found for this moral control 
previously exercised by the guilds. Where apprenticeship 
systems have been reestablished and an oflScial appointed 
to direct the training and work of the apprentice, it is 
generally assumed to be part of his duty to exercise 
general oversight out of working hours as well as in the 
shop. 

Lest it may be considered that the features above men- 
tioned are counsels of perfection, it should be pointed out 
that almost all of them are embodied in one form or another 
in various systems that have been established within recent 
years. 

In almost every European country apprenticeship is 
being revived, and where compulsory attendance at con- 
tinuation schools is in force, the problem is much simpli- 
fied, as then the employer has to concern himseK with 
the shop instruction only and to see that the apprentice 
attends school as required. 

In the United States at present there seems a country- 
wide campaign in the interest of apprentices. An investi- 
gation has recently been carried out by the Apprenticeship 



APPRENTICESHIP 147 

Committee of the United Typothetge of America. The fol- 
lowing questions were sent to every member: — 

1. Do you employ apprentices? (Not errand boys — but regu- 
lar apprentices actually learning the trade.) 

2. How many apprentices? (Composing-room, platen press 
department, cylinder press department.) 

8. How many errand boys or other boys do you employ? 

4. Are these destined to become apprentices? 

5. Do you give special attention to the training of your ap- 
prentices? 

6. If so, will you please outline what your method is? 

7. What provision is made for their advancement? 

8. What rate of wages do you pay — and how often do you 
increase it? 

9. Are your apprentices indentured? 

10. If so, for how long? 

11. Is parent or guardian of apprentice made a party to the 
indenture? 

12. What suggestions can you offer to the committee? 

In addition to answering the questions propounded, the 
employers were asked to give the committee the benefit of 
their experience along these lines, writing freely regarding 
conditions in their own localities and offering such sug- 
gestions as their experience seemed to warrant. 

Forty States and one hundred and seventy -^ight cities 
and towns replied. The number of individual firms report- 
ing was 486. Over half these shops give no attention what- 
ever to training apprentices. Many of those who do, have 
a written agreement with stated periods of advancement. 
The wages paid to beginners varied from $2 a week to $9, 
which was the highest reported. Increases are generally 
made at the expiration of each six months' service. One 
interesting and alarming feature of this investigation was 
the discovery that 397 shops were employing 846 errand 
boys and that for 717 of these no opportunity for advance- 
ment was provided. 

There are many schools in operation, conducted by pri- 
vate firms for the instruction of their own apprentices. 



148 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 



Many of these schools are admirable in every way and are 
performing just as useful a social, educational, and eco- 
nomic function as public industrial schools. It is a question 
for serious consideration whether these private schools, 
carried on under proper conditions, with approved teach- 
ers and adequate equipment, should not be subsidized by 
the State and subject to Government inspection. 



^ 



VIII 

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 

All advocates of industrial education are agreed that some 
measure of vocational guidance and direction is necessary, 
if, on the one hand, our boys are to find congenial and pro- 
fitable employment, and on the other, if the industries are 
to be recruited from boys adapted or adaptable to them. 
The ultimate success of all our efforts will very largely 
depend on the ability of the schools and other social organ- 
izations to furnish some adequate measure of expert voca- 
tional guidance and direction. A recognition of this fact 
has led to the formation of various agencies to bring about 
the end desired. 

In England the organization has taken the form of 
** Apprenticeship and Skilled Employment Associations," 
and in America of " Vocational Bureaus." In America voca- 
tional guidance, up to the present, at any rate, "does not 
mean selecting a pursuit for a child, nor finding a place for 
him." In England one of the functions of the association 
is "finding definite and suitable openings for the children." 
Nearly forty-five years ago the London Jewish Board of 
Guardians took up the matter by instituting a loan fund 
out of which premiums might be advanced to the parents, 
and repaid from the wages earned by the apprentice. In 
1886 a similar fund was started for the Christian children 
of East London, and these boards have apprenticed more 
than five thousand and one thousand children respectively. 
During the past few years the movement has spread to the 
elementary schools. Pupils are placed at work either as 
apprentices, or as pupils in the London County Council Day 
Trade Schools, or as learners (not indentured) in a trade. 
In the latter case, care is taken that the organization 



150 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

of the firm is such that the learner has a real opportunity 
of actually learning the trade. The plan adopted is: — 

1. One or both parents must make application. No child 
is placed without this. 

2. The teacher is consulted as to the character and abil- 
ity of the child. 

3. An inquiry is made into the financial condition of the 
parents and also into the child's health, age, and school 
career. 

4. After further consultation with the parents a suitable 
occupation is selected and an opening sought for, if one is 
not immediately available. 

The Apprenticeship and Skilled Employment Association 
carries on all arrangements with the employer and super- 
vises the agreement. A special form of indenture is used 
which allows a representative of the association to act as a 
party, with power to cancel the agreement in case of failure 
either on the part of the employer or the apprentice. 

One most desirable feature of the whole scheme is the 
fact that the work is not considered finished when the boy 
is placed. A watch is kept over him by a "visitor" or 
"guardian" who is always ready to offer friendly advice 
or counsel. Periodical reports are made by the employer 
to the association. This oversight does not concern itself 
wholly with the boy's work; it takes into consideration his 
leisure also, and encourages and stimulates his attendance 
at evening schools, and participation in healthy forms of 
amusement. 

In preparation for its functions the association has col- 
lected a large amount of industrial information concern- 
ing the different trades, the method adopted in teaching 
the trade, the wages paid, and future prospects. So far 
this movement has been restricted to the skilled trades, 
but there are large numbers who will enter industry lower 
down in the scale, and for them help is perhaps even more 
needed. 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 151 

One of the originators of this movement in England has 
said: — 

May we not look forward to a time when there may be an "after 
care " committee in touch with every school, which shall see that 
each child who needs the help should be placed in the best work 
possible, skilled or unskilled, where necessary, and that each child 
shall receive a continuance of education, so that the promise 
shown in school life may be fulfilled and the opportunity be given 
in every case for the full development of ability, intelligence, and 
character? 

This matter is considered of such importance that it has 
become a subject of legislation by the Imperial Parliament. 
The Labor Exchange Act of 1909 gave authority to the 
Board of Trade to establish and maintain labor exchanges, 
and the Education Act of 1910 gave power to local edu- 
cation authorities " to make arrangements, subject to the 
approval of the Board of Education, for giving to boys 
and girls under seventeen years of age assistance with 
respect to the choice of suitable employment, by means of 
the collection and the communication of information and 
the furnishing of advice." 

These two measures brought together two bodies which 
up to that time had been acting independently — the 
Board of Trade and the Board of Education — both cen- 
tral bodies having control over the whole of the British 
Isles except where otherwise stated. After consultation a 
joint memorandum was issued by the two bodies, which 
reserved to the education authorities the right of directing 
boys and girls with regard to their employment for six 
months after the termination of their school life. As a 
result of the action of these two bodies, juvenile labor 
bureaus are in process of establishment in all the large 
towns and cities of Great Britain. 

The method of operation in the different cities is prac- 
tically the same, Both bodies work together. All the ex- 
penses incurred are met by the Board of Trade. The head 



152 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

of the bureau is appointed by the Board of Trade after con- 
sultation with the local education authorities. 

In the city of Birmingham there is a "central care com- 
mittee" organized as a subcommittee of the education 
authority. This includes six representatives of that body, 
four social workers, four teachers, four employers, and 
four labor representatives, together with the superintend- 
ent of the labor exchange and the medical inspector of 
schools. 

Owing to the work of these committees the enrollment of 
pupils at the evening continuation schools in Edinburgh 
(Scotland) increased in four years by 136 per cent. In the 
same city, in 1909, 4270 pupils were reported as leaving the 
elementary schools. Of this number 3074 announced their 
intention to enroll in continuation classes. A third of these 
(1129) made application for employment, and of this num- 
ber 740 were placed by the bureau in suitable employment. 
These positions included sixty different trades in addition 
to oflSce work and miscellaneous businesses. 

In the city of London a large number of advisory com- 
mittees have been formed to cooperate with the labor 
exchanges under the auspices of the Board of Trade. The 
elementary school teachers send to each committee par- 
ticulars concerning the children about to leave school. 

The progress of this work has shown the necessity for spe- 
cial training of those who are to engage in the work of vo- 
cational guidance. To provide this, the Board of Trade 
and the London County Council have drawn up an experi- 
mental programme for professional instruction, and pro- 
vided classes under the direction of competent and expe- 
rienced teachers. 

The manual issued by the Apprenticeship and Skilled 
Employment Association above referred to gives an account 
of the conditions prevailing in nearly two hundred different 
trades, and in each case the details given have been revised 
by an expert. In this manual it is suggested that the fol- 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 



153 



lowing features should be noticed and an inquiry made as 
to whether they are present in the particular workshop or 
factory into which it is intended to place a boy, and also 
whether they are present in the trade generally. 



Considerations of Health 



Good 
Some moving about. 



Bad 



Sitting or standing long at a time 
without change of position. 

Where exercise is not involved in the work, a special point should be 
made of a walk before and after work. 



Work out of doors. 

Airy rooms with open windows, 
rooms kept at a comfortable tem- 
perature. 



Well-lighted rooms with the light 
coming from the back or side of the 
worker. 

Short hours (the shortest prevalent 
are eight). 

A full hour for dinner. 
Facilities for getting a good hot 
dinner. 

A clean pure atmosphere or ade- 
quate protection against dust. 



Care to avoid danger of lead poison- 
ing by the wearing of overalls, the 
use of oil to cleanse the hands, and 
the habit of washing the hands be- 
fore eating. 

No slack season and no time of 
great pressure. 

Usually boys may be kept on as 
"hands" or may easily find work 
in the trade. 

A trade may be carried on all the 
world over and a good all-round 
workman be sure of earning his liv- 
ing in it at home, or in the Colonies. 



Close rooms. 
Basement rooms. 
Excessive heat or cold. 
Exposure to the heat of a furnace. 
Constant wetting of the hands. 
Frequent sudden changes from a 
hot damp atmosphere to a cold one. 
Badly lighted rooms where artifi- 
cial light is used in the daytime. 

Long hours indoors (the longest 
allowed are ten). 
Only half an hour for dinner. 
No facilities for heating up dinner, 
or for buying a hot dinner cheap. 
Working in an atmosphere where 
there is much dust which must be 
breathed or where the air is heavily 
scented. 

Contact with lead as in paint, 
enamel, and the lead of type. Care- 
less habits with regard to this. 



Slack seasons alternating with pe- 
riods of pressure and overtime. 
Boys may be discharged not fully 
trained and find it hard to get work 
or complete their training. 
A trade may be confined to one 
town, or to one district in a town, 
and a man obliged to leave the dis- 
trict might be unable to get work. 



154 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

Good Bad 

A boy may insure that he learns to A trade may consist of making 

work any new machinery that may things by hand, and machinery may 

be introduced. be invented which cuts out hand- 
made goods. 

A boy may learn the theory of ma- A boy may leam to work machines 

chine construction both in the work- which afterwards are driven out by 

shop and at technical classes so that new machines of a dififerent pattern, 
when new machines are introduced 
he will be as competent as any one 
else to work them. 

Trades do not die sudden deaths, A boy may leam a trade which 

and a boy should leave a dying afterwards dies outaltogether, from 

trade and turn to something else, a change of fashion. 
The better his general education 
the more easily will he do this. 

A definite written agreement may A boy may be in a good trade and 

be come to, under which it is known yet he may be vague as to what 

exactly what parts of the trade a parts of it he is to leam. He may 

boy is to be taught. end by learning nothing. 

At technical classes a boy may A boy may be in a skilled trade and 

leam other processes of his trade yet he may be kept to one small 

and leam, too, their connection as process only, 
a whole. 

The National Conference on Vocational Guidance, held 
in Boston in 1910, stated that "one large aim in vocational 
guidance is to develop the methods and material by which 
the public schools may help fit their individual graduates 
for the work they are likely to do, and in this effort to use 
all the spiritual, economic, educational, and other agencies 
which may cooperate to bring about the most complete in- 
formation and the best suggestions." It will be seen from 
this that vocational guidance is not only calculated to 
eliminate the square peg in the round hole, as far as the in- 
dustries are concerned, but also to bring about a rational 
reform in the curriculum of the schools in order more 
directly to train for vocations. 

Organizations to provide this guidance have been estab- 
lished in New York, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Phila- 
delphia, Pittsburg, and many other cities. These, like all 
our educational reforms, started at the jtop; but, fortu- 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 155 

nately for the industries and the boys who are to enter 
them, the movement is beginning to descend to the ele- 
mentary schools. 

These organizations had their birth in New York. The 
movement began with the eflforts of some far-sighted and 
enthusiastic teachers to place pupils leaving school. The 
work was entirely voluntary. By 1908 every day or night 
high school had a teacher or committee of teachers to as- 
sist pupils to decide on a vocation and in learning how best 
to enter it. A series of leaflets is published giving all the 
necessary information concerning various industries and 
professions. These were used throughout the high school 
course in directing the attention of the students to the im- 
portance of choosing a vocation and definitely preparing 
for it. This work has been much more systematically de- 
veloped in the high schools than elsewhere. If the high 
schools are to be considered (as they really are) as institu- 
tions almost solely for preparing the student for college, 
the professions, and commercial pursuits, the work being 
done will have little effect upon purely industrial occupa- 
tions. It is generally admitted that their students do not 
enter and have no intention of entering either factory or 
workshop in a productive capacity. 

It is only when the work of these organizations is brought 
right down to the elementary school that it will materially 
affect the industrial workers and benefit the vast majority 
of those who never enter a high school. Recognizing this, an 
investigation is now being conducted to acquire data and 
"in case the movement appears to grow out of a real neces- 
sity to formulate a plan for vocational guidance for the 
elementary schools of New York City." 

Boston has five organizations working harmoniously to- 
gether for this end. One of these is a committee of mas- 
ters and submasters appointed by the Superintendent of 
Public Schools, with the definite purpose of commencing 
the work of direction before the pupils leave the elemen- 



156 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 



tary schools. The other organizations are the Vocation 
Bureau, the Women's Municipal League, the Girls Trade 
Education League, and the Boston Home and School Asso- 
ciation. Inquiries have been conducted into more than a 
hundred occupations and the information gathered filed 
for reference. As an example of the thoroughness with 
which these investigations are carried out, take the fol- 
lowing sample blank as filled in for a shoe factory: — 



THE VOCATION BUREAU. BOSTON 
Vocations fob Boston Boys 



Nature of occupation? 

Date of inquiry? 

Name of firm? 

Address? 

Superintendent or manager? 

Total nimiber of employees? 

Number of boys and girls? 

Has there been a shifting in the 

relative nimibers of each? 



Shoe manufacture. 
July 1st. 1910. 



2730 male. 2280 female. 

1200 boys, 1000 girls. 

No: there is fixed work for each. 



Pay 



Wages of various groups, and ages? Errand boys, counters, carriers. 14 

years old, $3.50; assemblers, assist- 
ants, pattern boys, 16 years, $3.50 
to $6; lasters, 20 years, $6 to $7; 
other work, 20 years or more, $8 to 
$12 for young men in early employ- 
ment. 

$3.50 to $6. 
By year. 

7.30 A.M. to 5.30 P.M.; to 12 M. 
on Saturday in summer; one hour 
nooning. 

This is very irregular, averaging $1 
per week each year. 
Not at all on age, but on ability, on 
position filled, or on increase in skill 
in a certain process. 
66 per cent piece-payment. Bonus 
for certain lines on quality and 
quantity of work, neatness of de- 
partments, etc. 



Wages at beginning? 

Seasonal? 

Hours per day? 



Rate of increase? 



a. On what dependent? 



h. Time or piece payment? 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 



157 



How are boys secured? 



Their ages? 
Previous jobs? 



Previous schooling? 



Are any continuing this training, 
and where? 



By application to firm, by adver- 
tising, and by employees. It is im- 
possible to find enough. 
Fourteen years and up. 
Nearly all boys come into this in- 
dustry from school. A few come 
from other shoe factories or from 
retail shoe stores. 

Grammar school or a certificate of 
literacy or attendance at night 
school must be presented. 
Yes; in public evening schools; in 
Y.M.C.A. classes, and continua- 
tion school in Boston. 



The Industry 



Physical conditions? 



What variety of skill required? 



Description of processes? 



What special dangers? 
a. Machinery. 

h. Dust. 

c. Moisture. 

d. Hard labor. 

e. Strain. 

/. Monotony. 

Competitive conditions of industry? 



Future of industry? 

What chance for grammar school 
boy? 



Most sanitary, with modem im- 
provements and safeguards, with 
hospital department and trained 
nurses. 

Some mechanical skill. The ordi- 
nary boy of good sense can easily 
learn all processes. 
Errand boys, counters, carriers, as- 
semblers, assistants, pattern boys, 
lasters, trimmers, and work dyeing 
and welting shoes. Also in oflSce, 
salesman, foreman, manager, or 
superintendent. 

The chief danger arises from care- 
lessness. 

Modem dust removers are used. 
Not to excess. 

Steady labor rather than hard. 
Not excessive. 

Considerable on automatic ma- 
chines. 

New England is a great centre of 
the shoe industry. There is ex- 
treme competition, but with a world 
market. 

The future of a staple product in 
universal demand. 
He would begin at the bottom as 
errand boy. 



158 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 



High school graduate? 



Vocational school graduate? 

What opportunity for the worker 
to show what he can do in other 
departments? 



In oflBce or in wholesale depart- 
ment to become salesman or man- 
ager. 

Trade school giving factory equip- 
ment would be best. 
The superintendent and foreman 
study the boy and place him where 
it seems best for him and for the 
firm. 



Tests 



What kind of boy is desired? 
What questions asked of applicant? 



What tests applied? 
What records kept? 



Union or non-union? 
Comment of employer? 



Will he take boys sent by vocation 

bureau? 

Will he attend vocation bureau con- Gladly. 

ferences if asked? 

Comment of foreman? 



Honest, bright, healthy, strong. 
Boys living at home are preferred. 
As to home, education, experience, 
and why leaving any former posi- 
tion. 

For oflSce work, writing and figuring. 
Name, address, age, nationality, 
married or single, living at home or 
boarding, pay, date of entry and of 
leaving. 
Open shop. 

Education is better for the boys 
and for us. 
Yes. 



Comment of boys? 



Health Board comments? 



Employment bureaus have failed 
us. We look everywhere for boys, 
but find few such as we want. The 
average boy can apply himself here 
so as to be well placed in life. 
We have a bowling-alley, reading- 
room and library, park, and much 
to make service here pleasant. It 
is something like school still. We 
mean to stay. Piece-work will give 
us good pay by the time we are 
twenty years old. 

Inhaling naphtha from cements and 
dust from leather-working ma- 
chines, and overcrowding and over- 
heating workrooms are to be 
guarded against in this occupation. 
The danger of such injurious process 
may be prevented by proper care. 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 159 

Census Bureau Report on this Occupation, Massachusetts, 

1908 

Number of establishments, 413. Capital invested, $35,260,028. 
Value of stock, $104,171,604. Wages paid, $38,959,428. Average 
earnings, $562.59. Males employed, 46,063. Females, 23,187. 
Value of product, $169,957,116. 

Bibliography: The Shoe Manufacturing Industry in New Eng- 
land, I. K. Bailey (New England States, vol. 1, 1897) and Massa- 
chusetts Labor Bulletin, no. 14, May, 1910. 

School fitting for this occupation; The Boston Continuation 
School. 

, Investigator, 



The information thus gathered is issued in bulletin form 
and widely distributed. Bulletins have already been pub- 
lished on "The Machinist," "Banking," "The Baker," 
"Confectionery Manufacture," "The Architect," "The 
Landscape Architect," "The Grocer," "The Department 
Store and its Opportunities for Boys and Young Men," 
"The Lawyer," "The Shoe Industry." These are issued 
primarily to supply teachers and others with the necessary 
information and material, in order that they may be able to 
advise parents and boys intelligently in the choice of an 
occupation, but are not intended to take the place of per- 
sonal consultation and cooperation. The contents of the bul- 
letin on " The Machinist " are as follows : — The trade — its 
divisions, dangers, conditions, future; pay, positions and op- 
portunities; apprenticeship in the trade; apprentice courses 
for machinists, die and tool makers, and pattern makers; the 
boy — qualities and training required; comments of people 
in the trade; comments from the Massachusetts Board of 
Health Report; statistics of manufacture, growth of the 
industry by decades; bibliography; trade periodicals, and 
a list of schools giving courses fitting for the occupation. 
Before being issued in its final form the bulletin was sub- 
mitted for approval to a number of employers, an econo- 



160 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

mist, and a labor union oflScial, so that it is fair to assume 
that the information given is absolutely correct. 

The City of Munich has issued over a hundred of such 
handbooks or bulletins. 

The Boston School Committee has aroused the interests 
of the teachers, and this must be an essential feature of 
any scheme for influencing the children of the elementary 
school. A committee of councillors is appointed for each 
school, and lectures and addresses are given to interest both 
parents and children. A card record system is adopted on 
which all the graduates of the school are entered, so that all 
the particulars required concerning each child are known 
and charted. A tabulation of the data thus obtained 
through a number of years should provide valuable ma- 
terial for intelligent action in the future. 

A system of summer apprenticeships has been estab- 
lished, and a special oflScer appointed to find work for boys 
during the summer. The business men of the city have 
heartily endorsed this plan and agree to give the boys the 
best possible chance to obtain a knowledge of the business, 
and to show whetljer they are fitted or not. In the "Trade 
School for Girls" two "vocational assistants" have been 
appointed and the regulations of the School Board require 
such an officer for each hundred girls in the school. There 
is also a paid assistant in the High School of Practical Arts. 

There are decided possibilities for vocational guidance 
within the school system itself, and these possibilities 
should be effectively brought to the attention of the 
parents. Probably the most unique example of effort in 
this direction is the Annual Report of the School Com- 
mittee of Boston for 1912. This report is issued "to the 
fathers and mothers of Boston," and steps are taken to 
see that it reaches the hands of those for whom it is 
intended. It is well illustrated and gives an account of 
the organization and purpose of every type of school 
under the jurisdiction of the Board. Every pupil in grade 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 161 

eight and some in grade seven are furnished with a copy. 
The study of the report is encouraged by a series of 
twenty-eight questions which the pupils are requested to 
answer. It is hoped by these and other means to acquaint 
the parents with the facilities and opportunities the schools 
have to offer. 

During the past two years the movement towards 
adequate vocational guidance has made remarkable 
strides. The present status of the movement has been 
well summarized by William T. Bawden, managing 
editor of "Vocational Education." 

Not so very long ago the problem of vocational guidance meant 
the finding of a job for the individual in some industry, and it was 
regarded as a very simple proposition. 

As men and women have studied into these problems, however, 
they have discovered that here is an immense field, challenging 
the most thorough investigation, and offering almost unlimited 
opportunities for the application of scientific method and skill. 
The effort to find employment for boys and girls has been largely 
transformed into an effort to keep the boys and girls out of the 
industries, by convincing them and their parents of the value of 
further schooling, at least until there is available a fund of more 
definite knowledge of the industries into which it is proposed to 
send the children. 

There are several distinct problems recognized in this general 
field of vocational guidance: — 

(1) There are still those who believe the problem to be one 
mainly of guiding individual boys and girls into suitable employ- 
ment. 

(2) There are those who believe that in the present state of 
general ignorance, the ones most in need of vocational guidance 
are the teachers and parents who are themselves supposed to be 
the sources of advice. 

(3) There can be no doubt that the industries need to be care- 
fully and systematically studied, to the end that vocational coun- 
sellors may know as accurately and fully as possible the condi- 
tions into which they send the boys and girls. It is believed that 
many industries must be greatly modified before any organized 
agency can assume responsibility for the employment of children 
in them. 



162 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

(4) Many believe that employers as a class are as much in need 
of vocational enlightenment as any of the others involved. 

(5) And, finally, there are those to whom vocational guidance 
means the impartial distribution of advice and suggestion to 
children, parents, teachers, employers and the industries. 

The extension of this movement throughout the country 
should do much to benefit the industries and assure con- 
genial and profitable lifework to the industrial workers, 
who form the backbone of the population, and on whom the 
prosperity and policies of the nation ultimately depend. 



IX 

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 

The only asset of the worker in the productive industries 
is his labor, and he must, for his own sake and that of his 
family, obtain as much for it as he can. Every man should 
value his work partly in terms of the money he is able to 
earn and partly in the opportunity for experience that will 
make him eligible for greater serving power in the future, 
and he should be willing to sacrifice to some extent the 
former for the latter. 

After carefully reviewing the situation one cannot help 
coming to the conclusion that one of the crying and out- 
standing needs is the education of the parent. He must be 
convinced that employment in the industries is as desirable 
for his children as "positions" in the so-called professions. 
Up to the present the only organization established for the 
promotion of industrial education, that has reached those 
with whom the ultimate decision will rest, and from 
whom the candidates for the industrial schools will be 
drawn, is the vocation bureau. The parent must be shown 
that conditions of labor are constantly improving and 
that continued education, either academic or industrial, 
will benefit himself and his children financially as well as 
socially. 

The prejudice against industry, which undoubtedly 
exists, ought to be removed; and to this end an active local 
propaganda should be inaugurated with the distinct purpose 
of reaching the industrial worker, for he, if properly organ- 
ized, is the absolute master of the situation. There is no 
class of the community better qualified to undertake this 
propaganda than the enlightened educator, as his advocacy 



164 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

will not be liable to be hindered by charges of selfishness 
and prejudice and he will be better able to secure the 
confidence of both sides. 

The theoretical interest taken by employers is thought, 
by the labor interests, to be inspired by ulterior mo- 
tives, and this suspicion, whether justified or not, has 
induced the artisan to hold aloof. Generally speaking, 
though the leaders of labor organizations have put them- 
selves on record as favorable to industrial education, the 
rank and file have held back. At present the wage-earner 
is neither for nor against industrial education. He is sim- 
ply cautious — perhaps indifferent. In the United States 
his only experience has been with private trade schools run 
as money-making institutions, and on the evidence that 
has been generally presented to him his conclusions are 
justifiable. 

In the conduct of this propaganda all labor organiza- 
tions should be approached and the subject presented to 
them from every point of view. The discussion should 
centre on definite plans and deal with results that have so far 
been accomplished, and not concern itself with high-sound- 
ing generalities and stale platitudes. Every means should 
be taken to remove the distrust which undoubtedly 
exists. 

Some are beginning to think that under present economic 
conditions the fixing of the age for entry into the industries 
at sixteen is a mistake, and that it is forcing the boy into 
the ranks of unskilled labor. It is argued that he is often 
less able at sixteen than at fourteen, owing to the unstable 
and uneducative character of his occupation between those 
ages. If the conditions existing between fourteen and six- 
teen years of age were different, if the child were educa- 
tionally employed with a definite purpose in view, this 
question would not arise, but we cannot help doubting, 
with the conditions as they are and not as we would like 
them to be, whether it is wise to retain a restriction 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 16^ 

that would be eminently desirable were the conditions 
different. 

Parents should be encouraged to make a decision, or 
rather to help the boy to make a decision, much earlier 
than at present. It is not necessary that the particular 
kind of trade be decided upon, but simply that he is to go 
into some form of handicraft. The German parent is called 
upon to make these decisions at various stages in the 
child's educational career. At the early age of ten he must 
choose the form of general education he wishes his child to 
receive, whether primary or secondary. Undoubtedly this 
decision has to be made according to his means and posi- 
tion and not according to his desires. While the child is in 
the secondary school another choice has to be made, and in 
this second choice the natural aptitudes of the child have 
to be considered. The choice now made practically decides 
whether the boy is to be trained for a business or an 
industrial career. There is thus a considerable difference 
between Germany and America. In the former the parent 
decides, influenced, perhaps, by the boy. In the latter the 
boy decides (when a decision is made), influenced very little 
by the parent. The boy must be made to think of his 
future, difficult though it may be, and the folly of selling 
it for immediate but transitory gain pointed out to him. 
We must also change our views as to what are now socially 
considered as "menial" employments. 

There is almost such a thing as a country being too pros- 
perous. Industry is booming, and boys can now so readily 
become proficient in a number of occupations at which 
they can earn journeyman's wages by applying themselves 
to the running of one machine and turning out a part of a 
part of a product, that it needs considerable effort and sac- 
rifice on their part to attempt to learn the whole of a trade 
even where factory conditions are such that this is possible. 
"Unskilled employment at fourteen with good money 
tempts the boy like a baited trap." The boy and his 



166 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

parent should be clearly shown that as a general rule the 
higher the immediate pay the poorer will be the future 
prospects. 

Consider the following regarding increased earning power 
given by a course of industrial training. Two hundred 
pupils before entering the Baron de Hirsch Trade School 
earned on an average $5.39 per week. After five and a half 
months' training (the full length of the course given here), 
the same students averaged $7.54 per week. 

One of the most important factors in the consideration 
of wages is that the child commencing at sixteen overtakes 
the boy beginning at fourteen in less than two years. That 
his total income in four years would equal that of the other 
for six years we cannot yet prove, but the slight data we 
have seem to indicate that this is the case. The boy from 
fourteen to sixteen is worth $4 a week if only to run errands. 
This equals $200, or interest on $4000 at five per cent. On 
this basis practically every boy represents a working capi- 
tal of $4000. The right kind of school training should send 
a boy out at the end of two years with an earning capacity 
of at least $12 a week, or $600 a year. On the same basis 
this equals interest on $12,000, an increase of threefold in 
two years. After a year's special training this increase 
Would be still greater. 

Next take the experience of the North End School of 
Printing, Boston. 

A number of the master printers of that city have estab- 
lished a school in which one year's training is given. After 
this training the boy enters the shop and receives the same 
wages as are paid at the last half of the third year of the 
ordinary five years' apprenticeship. It will be seen by 
the following table that the wage is also from three to five 
dollars greater than that of the ordinary apprentice during 
the same years. In this school, boys are not taken until 
they are sixteen years of age, and they are required to pay 
a tuition fee of $100: — 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 167 

Income for five years, ordinary apprenticeship^ without 

the School 

First vear i ^^ ^^^^^ ^* ^^'^^ ^^^^'^^ 

J^irstyear j^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ 

c J 5 26 6.00 156.00 

Secondyear j^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ 

^hi^A ,roo. 5 26 8.00 208.00 

Fourth year I ^^ ^^'^^ ^^^'^^ 

rourm year ^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ 

Vif^h.r... (26 13.00 338.00 

Fifth year j^^ ^^ ^^ 390.00 

$2,288.00 

Income for the same time, one year of which is spent in 

the School. 

First year in the school 000.00 

o J (26 weeks at $9.00 $234.00 

Secondyear I gg 10.00 260.00 

rrw A 5 26 11.00 286.00 

Thirdyear j^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ 

T3, ^, (26 14.00 364.00 

Fourth year ]gg 16.00 416.00 

T7-**i, 526 18.00 468.00 

Fifthyear j^^ ^^^^ ^^g^^ 

$2,808.00 

Income, five years, one year in School $2,808.00 

Income, five years, shop apprenticeship 2,288.00 

$520.00 

Less tuition 100.00 

Net advantage of one year in School 420.00 

The Massachusetts Industrial Commission of 1906, pre- 
viously referred to, investigated the cases of more than 
eight hundred boys and young men, employed within the 
State, and ascertained the average weekly wages of those 
who had been trained in the shops and of those who had 



168 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 



been trained in industrial and technical schools. The re- 
sults obtained are given below: — 




L Cf A 


Average wages 


of 


Average 


! wages of boys 


i.ge 


shop trained boys 


trained in 


technical school 




A 






B 


14 


4.00 








15 


4.50 








16 


5.00 








17 


6.00 








18 


7.00 






10.00 


19 


8.50 






11.75 


20 


9.50 






15.00 


21 


9.50 






16.00 


22 


11.50 






20.00 


23 


11.75 






21.00 


24 


12.00 






23.00 


25 


12.75 






31.00 



A summation of this table shows that if two boys of ordi- 
nary intelligence and ability had graduated from the ele- 
mentary school twelve years ago and A had gone to work 
at once, while B had entered a good industrial or technical 
school, A would have earned with twelve years' work about 
$5122.50, and B about $7387.50, or about one and a half 
times as much. This estimate gives to each boy a vacation 
of two weeks per year without pay. One has nearly reached 
the limit of wages paid to unskilled labor, while the other, 
with training and experience, is just beginning to get a rapid 
advancement in wages that may enable him to launch out 
into business on his own account, and thus furnish employ- 
ment for many who, like his unfortunate schoolmate, were 
forced to go directly from the elementary school to the 
shop. 

The investigations of Mr. James M. Dodge, then Pres- 
ident of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 
along the same lines are well known, and all point to the 
same conclusion. Such facts have a powerful influence, and 
for this reason less emphasis should be placed on the ped- 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 169 

agogic and cultural aim and objects of industrial education 
and more upon its economic and social aspects. Both busi- 
ness men and workmen are more receptive to arguments 
of this character. 

Industrial education imposes mutual duties on the 
employer and the employee; both receive and both give. 
The employer must receive more and better work and the 
employee, in return for giving this, must receive greater 
consideration and higher wages. The object of the manu- 
facturer is increased production. The object of the work- 
man is higher wages and comfortable and safe working 
conditions. If the manufacturer advocates industrial educa- 
tion^ and is not willing to recognize that this entails higher 
wages, that type of education will be opposed, and rightly 
opposed, by organized labor. We need less avarice on the 
one hand, and less selfishness on the other. There is a labor 
of quality and a labor of quantity. Industrial education 
will increase both, and in these days it is perhaps more 
necessary to inculcate pride of workmanship rather than 
speed of production. 

As Mr. Frank Vanderlip says: — 

We have gained markets because we have cheap raw material, 
because of American (United States) inventive ingenuity, and 
because of the great scale upon which we have done things; but 
never have we gained an important market because we could do 
a piece of work better than our competitors could do it. Never 
have we sold an important consignment because superior handi- 
craft entered into its production. 

Great economic losses are perpetually occurring through 
industrial incompetency. The increase in the nation's 
wealth that j would be gained by better preparation^ is 
incalculable, and the additional profit to the industry can 
readily be understood. A flaw in a rail or a girder, imper- 
fect plumbing in a tenement, may cause the loss of hun- 
dreds of lives before the defective piece of work can be 
replaced or remedied. Ninety per cent of the repairs re- 



170 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

quired to working machinery are said to be directly due to 
the negligence and ignorance of the operator. Instruction 
in the care and manipulation of appliances will reduce this 
loss by at least seventy-five per cent, and all operators, 
particularly those employed on piece-work, should person- 
ally gain in the same proportion. The efficiency of labor 
would not have to be extraordinarily increased, to raise the 
earning power of the individual ten cents a day, yet such an 
increase would amount to nearly a billion dollars annually. 

The right kind of education will not only get the boy 
into the "job," but it will also get him out of it. The 
American youth is held to one branch partly by ignorance 
and partly by economic pressure. It can hardly be ex- 
pected that if he receives good wages under the piece-work 
system he should leave one machine in the factory to learn 
to operate another where he would receive less money, 
being less skilled at the new work. The only place where 
he can acquire skill in working a new machine is in an 
evening trade or industrial school. 

Initiative has been defined as doing the right kind of 
thing without being told, and ability as doing the right 
thing after being told once, and in the education to be 
given, both these qualities need to be developed. Their 
possession will enable the boy to rise step by step in his 
chosen trade and give him stability and ambition. Stability 
does not mean sticking to one thing forever, but it does 
mean standing by that one thing until all its possibilities 
have been exhausted. When this result has been achieved, 
movement is desirable. This movement is very different 
from the restlessness and shif tlessness which is so character- 
istic of the modern youth. In every workman we should 
recognize the possibility of a competent foreman, and the 
instruction given should be such that, while it is imme- 
diately applicable to his daily work, it will yet have a value 
in the future in any higher position the yoimg workman 
may prove himself capable of filling. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 171 

Another function of industrial education that should be 
stressed is the development of what has been called indus- 
trial elasticity. When Bessemer invented his new method 
of making steel, thirty-nine thousand workmen formerly 
engaged in making bar iron in puddling furnaces lost their 
means of making a living because the industry took a 
n6w direction. This is by no means an isolated example. 
Science and invention are sweeping away many of the 
humbler occupations and evolving new ones, and industrial 
versatility is at least quite as necessary as industrial skill 
or knowledge. The educational watchword, "Knowledge is 
Power," is responsible for a great deal of undigested and 
unassimilated information. Only that knowledge is valu- 
able which is usable. It is the' application that is made 
of the knowledge that gives the power, and not its mere 
possession. 

The advance of industry in all countries depends very 
largely on employers being able to secure workmen of suflS- 
cient knowledge and flexibility of mind to be able to turn 
readily from the one thing they have been doing to some- 
thing different, according to the character of the improve- 
ment that has been made in the processes of the industry. 

The object in view is the development of the industrial 
productivity of the country to the utmost extent consist- 
ent with social betterment and welfare. Thousands of 
men are employed to-day in industries that had no exist- 
ence fifty or sixty years ago. The bicycle, the telephone, 
electric light, and automobile have given birth to a number 
of new employments. An industry becomes obsolete in a 
generation and a valuable machine is often scrapped in less 
than a decade. Under these circumstances it is essential 
that the workers should have the opportunity to develop 
that elasticity, versatility, or adaptability which will pre- 
vent them being thrown out of employment when these 
changes come, as come they will. 

Skilled labor is essential. The progress and develop- 



172 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

ment of an industry depends on the technical training of 
the few. Its continuance depends on the industrial train- 
ing of the many. What the future artisans are to be, and 
the part they are to play in the national life, are probably 
the most important questions the political economist has 
to consider. To secure workers in the skilled trades under 
present conditions entails a wanton economic waste. 
Many who might be most valuable are never known be- 
cause they have never had an opportunity to discover 
their own talents. 

It is sometimes urged that an increase in the number of 
skilled workers will render it difficult for the present work- 
ers to obtain employment, and it is pointed out that even 
now many are unable to get work. The fact that many of 
the men engaged in a trade are unable to secure employ- 
ment is by no means always evidence that it is over- 
crowded. It may be found that the work has to be sent 
abroad because there are no men sufficiently skilled to do 
it, and that the unemployed are largely men who only 
partially imderstand the various processes involved in the 
work, a defect which can be remedied only by deeper know- 
ledge and broader training. 



PART III 
THE DANGERS 



X 



DANGERS ARISING FROM THE MISINTERPRETATION 
OF FOREIGN SYSTEMS, AND OTHER CAUSES 

In the promotion and organization of industrial education 
many mistakes are likely to be made. Some of these have 
been incidentally referred to throughout the preceding 
pages: those arising from the lack of parental influence 
and guidance, the misdirection of the work of the elemen- 
tary schools, the non-enforcement of compulsory attend- 
ance laws, the drifting of adolescents, the haphazard choice 
of occupations, and the danger of ignoring the advantages 
of a rational system of apprenticeship. In addition to the 
above there are a number of others, some of which will now 
be dealt with. 

Many mistakes have been made and much money 
wasted in the building and equipment of industrial and 
technical schools. All that should be aimed at, for the 
shop work, is the reproduction of the best workshop 
conditions. The structures provided for this work should 
form an integral part of the whole building and have as 
much attention devoted to them as those provided for 
the academic instruction, in order that the two branches 
may be regarded as of equal value. Buildings can be archi- 
tecturally beautiful without being too costly, if a simple 
effective style be chosen. 

Often the machinery, tools, and general equipment are 
designed more for the purpose of making an effective show 
than for eflSciency of service. Dr. Andrew S. Draper, Com- 
missioner of Education for the State of New York, says : — 

Many a time a principal or teacher pleads for an appropriation 
with which to buy machinery, tools, and other equipment without 
any definite theory, or plan, or end in view. If refused he would 



176 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

feel outraged and become a martyr. If given, he studies the cata- 
logues, and sees the agents for the purpose of spending the money 
in ways that will look well and make an impression upon the 
people, who always love an object lesson and are often susceptible 
and superficial about industrial training. Real tradesmen and 
workmen discriminate: and they are amused by what they see. 
There is not enough substantial result to it. I know very well that 
this is not always true, but quite as well that it is often true. 

He has also pointed out that the preponderating influence 
of technical schools throughout the whole of America is 
in the direction of turning out men for professional and 
managing employments, and that they do not train work- 
men, and herein lies a real danger. 

It is a grave error to inaugurate these schools with costly 
equipment and elaborate buildings. A plain building of 
the most modern and beautiful factory type (and there are 
some of these that might well be taken as models) is all 
that is essential, and money should not be wasted in non- 
essentials, particularly when better results can be obtained 
without them, and when the money can be better spent in 
directions which will materially increase the efficiency of 
the work. 

It is a noticeable fact that the most vital industrial 
education, as far as training real workmen is concerned, is 
being done to-day in buildings which were not specifically 
erected for the purpose and which cannot boast any so- 
called architectural beauty. 

The equipment started with should be the minimum, 
and no better training could be given than that which is to 
be obtained in gradually building up the equipment by the 
work of the students themselves. The funds could be bet- 
ter expended in payment for the services of teachers with 
sufficient knowledge and skill to supervise the building of 
equipment than in providing ready-made equipment which 
the students have not skill to use. Which will produce the 
better results, a $20,000 equipment and a $1000 teacher 
or a $10,000 equipment and a $2000 teacher? 



MISINTERPRETATION OF FOREIGN SYSTEMS 177 

Probably the greatest danger we have to guard against 
is the too slavish imitation of foreign systems. It is per- 
haps not possible to treat of industrial education without 
some consideration being given to the plans followed and 
the methods pursued in Germany. Owing to the success 
of that country in the industrial world, attention has been 
concentrated on her system of education. In connection 
with this, certain misconceptions have arisen, and we are 
in danger of losing sight of salient features and principles 
inherent in the German people and German methods, 
which features and principles do not exist in the same form 
in any other country or people. 

The Germans themselves are fully alive to the danger of 
following too closely the methods pursued in other coun- 
tries. In 1904 a German commission was sent to the United 
States to investigate American education, and in the course 
of that inquiry they paid special attention to the industrial 
phases of it. In the preface to the report made by this 
commission is to be found the following : — 

The school system of a country is part of its culture. It is 
indissolubly linked with its historic development, its economic 
and political condition. Thus the American school system, too, 
with its superiorities and defects, is conditioned by the extremely 
rapid economic development of a young people, the democratic 
constitution of the country, its mode of settlement, the peculiar 
mixture of its population. In all these respects we Hve under 
essentially different conditions. If we would learn from the 
Americans we should try less to imitate one or other success- 
ful measures than to appropriate sound and effective ideas of 
organization. 

When the principles laid down in the above quotation 
are recognized and the fullest consideration given to the 
fact that the school system of a country "is indissolubly 
bound up with its historic development, its economic and 
political condition," then, and then only, can investiga- 
tions of foreign school systems bring permanent good to 
the country instituting the investigation. 



178 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

Probably the educational system of Germany has re- 
ceived more attention from American investigators than 
the system of any other country, and it is time attention 
was called to several mistakes which have arisen owing 
to mistranslation and misunderstanding of words, and the 
assumption that the German term necessarily means the 
same as the corresponding English or American one. We 
shall also call attention to factors in industrial education 
other than schools, which show how the German has bent 
all his energies, political, social, and moral, has brought all 
his powers into play, and has utilized his natural genius 
for order and system to accomplish this one end, — indus- 
trial efficiency. It is not our purpose to describe and enu- 
merate the different types of schools to be found within 
the limits of the German Empire. This has been done ad 
nauseam. 

The editor of the "American Machinist," from whose 
paper many of the following particulars are taken, first 
called attention to the confusion arising from the assump- 
tion that the term "trade school" as used in America has 
the same meaning that attaches to it in Germany. A trade 
school according to the American conception is one in- 
tended largely to take the place of apprenticeship, and to 
teach the trade as far as possible in the same way as it 
would be taught in the shop, giving no more of theory 
and scientific principles than is absolutely necessary for the 
working of the machinery required. It does not at all 
affect the argument that, owing to the present agitation 
and the opposition of organized labor to this type of trade 
school, a new type is being evolved, broader in its scope 
and wider in its application. 

The majority of our people believe that in the ordinary 
course of events the German boy learns his trade in a school 
supported at the public expense. The average American, 
whenever he can turn his thoughts from baseball or mov- 
ing-picture shows, thinks that the German boy chooses his 



MISINTERPRETATION OF FOREIGN SYSTEMS 179 

trade and then goes into a school to learn it. It is true that 
in some few industries such as watchmaking, woodcarving, 
and art metal-work, trade schools are to be found, but 
even in these cases they only supplement and never take 
the place of apprenticeship. With one or two exceptions, 
due to local conditions, it is true to say that neither 
federal nor local Governments in Germany engage in the 
teaching of trades. Actual trade teaching is more com- 
mon in London or Chicago than it is in Berlin or any 
other German city. In America industrial education is 
taken quite conamonly to mean definite trade teaching, 
in Germany it is not. 

Broadly speaking, there are in Germany two classes of 
industrial schools, one designed to supplement shop work 
during apprenticeship, and the other to perform the same 
service after the apprenticeship has been completed. Boys 
enter upon their apprenticeship at fourteen years of age, 
and in the comparison of the two systems this most impor- 
tant fact must not be lost sight of. The work of the " Con- 
tinuation School " is generally done in the evening, though in 
some cases it is taken in the daytime and partly on Sunday, 
but the general tendency now is to substitute work in the 
daytime for that previously taken in the evening. Attend- 
ance at these schools is compulsory, and the responsibility 
of seeing that the attendance is duly made is thrown upon 
the employer. The purpose of these schools is oflScially 
said to be — 

(1) To supplement the general education gathered in the 
common schools with such practical knowledge as will be 
of value in winning a livelihood. 

(2) To cultivate the sense of religion, morality, and 
patriotism. 

This purpose is clearly shown by the curriculum drawn 
up for each. For instance, in the continuation school for 
business apprentices the course is as below. 



180 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 



CONTINUATION SCHOOL FOR BUSINESS APPRENTICES 



Studies 



Hours per Week 



2 S3 






(^ 



03 
§ 



c3 



S 



Religion 

Arithmetic ^ 

Bookkeeping 

Banking and exchange 

Business correspondence, reading ^ 

Commercial geography and study of ma- 
terials 3 

Studies in life and citizenship ^ 

Stenography 

Writing 

Total 



10 



10 



* All the problems are taken from the actual business in which the pupils of a given group 
are engaged. 

' Reading is general, but much of it pertains to business careers and to the particular busi- 
ness in which the pupils are engaged. 

' The raw materials and also the manufactured products are studied. One group, instead 
of this, receives instruction in money, banking, and finance. 

* Personal and public hygiene; duties, rights, and opportunities of the apprentice; decorum; 
development of trade; transportation and communication in Germany; trade organizations; 
capital and labor; chamber of commerce, and industrial exchange ("Gewerbe Kammer"); 
dvics, made as concrete as possible. 

The course of study in the school for basket makers at 
Lichtenf els, Bavaria, includes the following subjects : — 

German language and commercial papers, grammar, 
reading, correct writing, calligraphy, industrial calcula- 
tions, industrial bookkeeping, history of industry and bas- 
ket weaving, freedom of industry, organization of chambers 
of commerce and industry, industrial legislation, com- 
munities, social and economic arrangements, constitution 
of state and empire, geometrical drawing and elements o£ 
theory of projection, freehand drawing, technical drawing, 
workshop instruction, including knowledge of materials, 
tools and appliances, and the cultivation of osiers. 



MISINTERPRETATION OF FOREIGN SYSTEMS 181 



The course for carpenters and cabinet-makers provides 
for the following: — 

CONTINUATION SCHOOL FOR CARPENTERS AND 
CABINET-MAKERS 



Subjects op Study 



Religion 

Arithmetic and bookkeeping ^ . . . . 
Reading and business composition. 
Studies in life and citizenship . . . . 
Drawing 

(a) Carpenters 

(6) Cabinet-makers 

Practical Technology * 

(a) Carpenters 

(b) Cabinet-makers 

Total : (a) Carpenters 

(b) Cabinet-makers 



Hours per Week 



Winter 
half-year 



4J Cj 



Uhh 



12 
9 



cd 





Summer 
half-year 






UhH 



1 

1* 
1* 
1 



* Alternately. 

^ As before,' the work in arithmetic consists of the actual problems of the trade concerned, 
here of the problems actually to be solved by carpenters and cabinet-makers. 
' Study of woods, tools, machines, and their care and uses. 

In some cases preparatory courses are provided, and these 
are intended for those elementary school pupils who com- 
plete only the seven compulsory grades of the eight public 
school grades. It will thus be seen that industrial educa- 
tion in the continuation schools of Germany means, chiefly 
and usually, an education entirely of an intellectual char- 
acter, but related to the trade or industry which the pupil 
has already chosen and at which he is actually working. 
No student is admitted to the second class of schools until 
he has actually completed his regular term of apprentice- 



182 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

ship. His attendance at them is purely voluntary and a 
small fee is charged. 

The "Trade School for Machine Builders" is a literal 
translation of the German name, "Die Fach-schule fiir 
Machinebauer." That this school is not a trade school 
in the American acceptation of the term is shown by the 
subjects taken. These are, mathematics and mathemati- 
cal exercises, physics, chemistry, technical mechanics, ma- 
chine elements and machine study, properties of mate- 
rials and tools, electrotechnics, general and mechanical 
drawing. 

The German term "Handwerkerschule" means "hand- 
worker school," and is a school to be attended by hand- 
workers and not necessarily a school where hand work is 
either done or taught. The name was adopted long before 
there was any thought of the possibility of including actual 
trade work in a school curriculum. The schools above 
described are essentially improvement schools. 

Even in those schools which have a workshop equipment, 
a student must have completed his apprenticeship before 
he can enter, and the object is to offer facilities for doing 
work different from that he has been doing in the shop. 
None of these schools are trade schools. They have, indeed, 
been adversely criticized in Germany as educating men out 
of the shops rather than into them. No matter what type 
of school is examined, the recognition of the intellectual 
side of the industry is the basis on which the course of 
study is built. 

If the German industries are better supplied with skilled 
workmen than the American industries, it is due quite as 
much to the apprenticeship system as to the educational 
system. The education given broadens the mind and gen- 
eral understanding of the workmen, but it does not increase 
their number, nor does it add to their mechanical skill 
and dexterity except indirectly through the cultivation of 
their intelligence. If, then, we are, according to the general 



MISINTERPRETATION OF FOREIGN SYSTEMS 183 

trend of public discussion, to copy Germany, adequate 
attention must be paid to its apprenticeship system as well 
as to its educational system. Even in Munich, where the 
continuation schools are best developed, there are over six 
thousand apprentices. This system of apprenticeship as 
applied in Germany is a serious business. The contract is 
not regarded lightly, and neither party can break it except 
for weighty reasons. 

While the law does not contemplate or prescribe shop 
work, a municipality or other authority can add to the 
prescribed requirements, and hence local differences arise. 
There is nothing to hinder a community from putting in 
shops if it so desires, provided it is willing to pay the 
additional expense incurred. Owing to this local freedom 
allowed by the general law, the schools differ in method, 
character, and plan, but however widely they differ in these 
points their aim is the same. They travel along different 
roads, but they have the same goal in view, and that is the 
training of the young workmen along the line of increased 
eflSciency as citizens. No attempt is made to develop 
"skill" nor even to teach a specific trade, but the idea is 
to give each student a comprehensive knowledge of the 
trade and its function in the community. 

One would think, judging from the American eulogies of 
the German system, that the Germans themselves were 
thoroughly satisfied; but as a matter of fact their system 
is the subject of severe criticism, not only from observant 
outsiders, but also from numerous directions within the lim- 
its of the empire itself. They are wrestling with the same 
problems as are the American people. German manufac- 
turers are complaining of want of skill, and many of them 
are adopting systems of training their own apprentices 
much as American manufacturers are doing. But even in 
this particular an essential difference is shown from the 
American practice. When the methods of training adopted 
by manufacturers are approved by the educational author- 



184 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

ities, they are subsidized, to some extent, by the State, and 
this approval relieves the young apprentice from attend- 
ance at the regulation continuation school. 

The German people are also confronted with the prob- 
lem of overcrowded professions, owing to the prominence 
given to the training of leaders and officers. The same 
mistake is being made in America. As far back as 1886 
there was an excess of more than one thousand unemployed 
graduates in engineering. One large engineering establish- 
ment found it necessary to display a sign reading, "No 
Polytechnic need apply." 

In 1890 the German Emperor delivered a speech be- 
fore the Berlin Conference on Secondary Education. He 
said: — 

The course of training in our schools is defective in many ways. 
The chief reason is that since 1870 the classical philologists have 
been lodged in the Gymnasium as beati possidentesy and have laid 
the chief emphasis on the subject-matter of instruction — on 
learning and knowing — not on the formation of character and 
on the actual needs of life. . . . The demands made in the exami- 
nations show that less stress is laid on practical ability than on 
knowledge. The underlying principle of this is that the scholar 
must, above all things, know as much as possible; whether that 
knowledge fits the needs of after life is a secondary consideration. 
If one talks with one of these gentlemen and tries to explain to 
him that the youth must in some measure be practically equipped 
at school for actual life and its problems, the invariable reply is 
that such is not the mission of the school, that its chief concern is 
the training of the mind ("die Gymnastic des Geistes"), and that 
if this training of the mind is rightly ordered the young man is 
placed in a position by means of it to undertake all the necessary 
tasks of life. I think that we cannot go on acting from that point 
of view any longer. . . . Our schools, and I speak more especially 
of the Gymnasium, have undertaken a task beyond human 
strength, and have, in my opinion, caused an overproduction of 
highly educated people — more than the nation can bear. 

Germany is paraded before us as a country in which 
every individual is fitted by the State for the part he is to 



MISINTERPRETATION OF FOREIGN SYSTEMS 185 

play in life, and this is to some extent true. But when we 
are told that in this particular we should set to work in 
sober earnest and imitate their methods of trying to bring 
about this result, one essential difference, which makes 
such imitation impossible, is forgotten — the American is 
not German. 

At first sight one cannot help feeling great admiration 
for the beautiful machine which the German has evolved. 
For certain purposes and along certain lines the machine 
does excellent work, but the American conception of free- 
dom would not flourish in such a soil. Of course, in 
America, freedom is too apt to become license, but even 
this is perhaps more to be desired than the suppression of 
all freedom. From the age of six every German child is 
captured by the State and trained on the assumption that 
he is to fill a certain fixed place in the national machine. 
That place is generally definitely decided at the age of ten. 
Each school and each type of school is designed for man- 
ufacturing certain parts and wheels and cogs of this ma- 
chine. If the pupils or their parents were free to choose 
according to mental ability or capacity, not much adverse 
criticism could be offered; but caste, class distinctions, 
and financial considerations are largely the principles 
which determine whether the pupil shall enter a cer- 
tain kind of school. Of course, even in Germany nature 
sometimes refuses to be bound, and we hear of boys 
and men who have been strong enough to break the fet- 
ters which would shackle them; but the freedom of move- 
ment, either within a class, or from one class to another, 
that is so common in America, is seldom heard of in 
Germany. 

Both American and German schools are designed to pro- 
duce good citizens, but the ideals of citizenship held by the 
two peoples differ widely. The German subordinates the 
rights of the individual to the demands of the community. 
The American recognizes the rights of the individual, and 



186 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

offers every facility for the development of the gifts he pos- 
sesses. The German has not yet recognized that, unless the 
individual be allowed his fullest growth, his service to the 
community will be lessened to the extent that his growth is 
restricted. The German reverences law, order, and prop- 
erly constituted authority. The American tolerates them. 
The German workman will do what he is told to do, with- 
out giving much thought to the reasonableness of the order. 
The American workman wishes to be convinced of the 
effect of, and the basis for, the order before he dreams of 
carrying it out, and even then he will do it in his own 
way. The German is dependent, the American independ- 
ent. The German acts first and thinks afterwards. The 
American thinks first and acts afterwards, if he wishes. 
The American recognizes the liberty of each personality. 
The German ignores the individual and considers the 
State supreme. 

The military system has done much towards bringing 
about the national attitude of the German mind. For one, 
two, or three years every able-bodied German must pass 
through the ranks. Elementary school teachers, candidates 
for that position and others who reach a certain standard 
of education, are only liable to one year's voluntary service. 
The "certificate of exemption from military service" is a 
recognized standard by which applicants for various indus- 
trial positions can be measured. This system seems 
admitted to be of distinct educational value to the individ- 
ual and of considerable industrial value to the nation. The 
effect on the physical side is great and its general moral 
influence is seen in the shop ^t every turn. Masters and 
men have gone through the same training together, and 
have learned that order, system, and discipline are just 
as necessary in industrial affairs as they are in military 
operations. It is not too much to say that military serv- 
ice has played a great part in the making of industrial 
Germany. 



MISINTERPRETATION OF FOREIGN SYSTEMS 187 

If we were to adopt the whole organization of the Ger- 
man system, there would still be something lacking with- 
out which success could not be achieved, and that is the 
spirit of the German people. We need not so much the 
imitation of certain specific institutions as the inculcation 
of the spirit and purpose which has fostered them. 

The London "Times" Commissioner, who in 1903 con- 
ducted a thorough investigation of the industrial conditions 
in Germany, says : — 

The secret does not lie in this thing or that, as we are so often 
told, nor can it be formulated under two or three heads or half a 
dozen; but it can be compressed into one word — work. Not 
work in one or two directions by one or two classes, but work all 
round from top to bottom — from the Kaiser to the workshop 
apprentice. The Germans have been forced to become a manu- 
facturing and exporting nation in order to support themselves. 
They have deliberately bent all their energies to the task; have 
brought their best mental gifts — science, order, method, fore- 
thought — to bear upon it, and have spared no pains or sacrifice 
to accomplish it. 

First, the Government. It has always kept in view the duty of 
fostering industries, and it never misses a point or loses a chance 
in fostering them. Hence the judicious factory legislation, the 
great insurance scheme, the educational system (which really is 
a "system "), and the carefully devised tariflF, with numerous 
minor points of policy, both active and passive. 

Then the manufacturers. They have pushed resolutely for- 
ward point by point, taking advantage of everything that might 
help them: they have studied the market with ceaseless vigilance; 
they have encouraged advance by scientific research, artistic 
training, and manual skill; they have sent their young men wher- 
ever they could best learn; they have provided good working 
conditions, and have supported innumerable institutions for the 
welfare of their work-people. 

The traders have been no less active in their way, and the 
teachers of all grades have brought equal diligence and capacity 
to bear upon their important functions. The general body of citi- 
zens have contributed indirectly to the general result through the 
faithful exercise of municipal duties, the poor-law administration 
and the numerous institutions such as labor registries, all of which 
tend to the well-being and eflSciency of labor. 



188 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

Over the entrance to some large works in Nuremberg, 
inscribed on a marble tablet in letters of gold, is the follow- 
ing inscription : — 

" What work has won 
Work will retain 
Through the long centuries. 
Thus God decrees." 

The discussion of educational questions in Germany is 
not hindered by misapprehension and misunderstanding 
owing to confusion of terms. The nomenclature is accurate, 
and everybody knows exactly what is meant and included 
in the name of any type of school. In referring to this, the 
United States Deputy Consul at Chemnitz says, "This cer- 
tainty removes all danger of a waste of energy and time 
in misunderstood discussions, false criticisms, misappre- 
hensions, and a general useless and wasteful cross-line fire 
between educational reformers." 

As Ernest C. Meyer of the University of Wisconsin has 
said: — 

She does not neglect and expose labor to the ravages of disease; 
she does not neglectfully expose labor to economic destruction 
through the vicissitudes of accident and sickness and invalidity; 
she does not neglectfully expose labor to brutal exploitation on 
the part of reckless corporations; she does not neglectfully expose 
labor to wanton destruction of life in the mines and in the factor- 
ies. Hand in hand with that grand system of industrial education 
went the development of those institutions necessary for the con- 
servation of the industrial man. It is not sufficient that industrial 
values be merely created; if a nation is to have lasting benefit 
therefrom, they must be scrupulously preserved. 

We must learn from Germany that the problem of indus- 
trial education is to be approached and attacked from all 
sides. If we would succeed we too must do outside the 
schools a number of things that make for industrial progress 
that we are in the greatest danger of forgetting, and with- 
out which any system of industrial education will largely 
fail of its full measure of success. We must give much 



MISINTERPRETATION OF FOREIGN SYSTEMS 189 

attention to the conservation of natural resources, but like 
Germany, while devoting the fullest consideration to the 
conservation of our forests, our soils, and other products of 
nature, we must concern ourselves most particularly with 
the conservation of the man. And, finally, the deeper les- 
son to be learned from Germany is revealed by the fact that 
she devotes more attention than any other nation in the 
world to the protection of the industrial worker. 



THE END 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX A 

RESOLUTIONS ;ADOPTED BY THE NATIONAL ASSO- 
CIATION OF MANUFACTURERS OF THE UNITED 
STATES OF AMERICA, MAY 21, 1912 

The series of resolutions adopted by the National Association of 
Manufacturers of the United States of America is probably the 
most comprehensive statement of our educational deficiencies, 
and the remedies therefor, ever made. For this reason those 
resolutions are here quoted. They also summarize to a very large 
extent the arguments made in the preceding pages. 

Whereas, one-half of the children in the common schools of the United 
States leave school by the end of the sixth grade, with no substantial 
education requirements beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic in their 
simpler forms, the essentials of education and citizenship coming, if at all, 
after the sixth grade; and 

Whereas, this half of the children soon forget much of what they 
learned in their brief school experience, and 

Whereas, truancy and absence are so prevalent that less than three- 
fourths of the children are in school as much as three-fourths of the time, 
the enrollment being 17,000,000 and the average attendance being under 
12,000,000, 1,600,000 being permanently absent from and unacquainted 
with school life; and 

Whereas, illiteracy in the United States is fifty times that of several 
Continental countries and is four times greater among the children of 
native whites than among the native-bom children of immigrants; and 

Whereas, in many schools and many cities educators are finding great 
cultural and educational value in the development of the motor activi- 
ties, the practical and creative desires of the youth, in highly developed 
practical and extended courses in manual and prevocational training, and 
such courses are developing, in an unexpected degree, an appreciation of 
the dignity of labor of all kinds, and such moral qualities as diligence, con- 
centration, perseverance, and respect, and causing many to successfully 
continue in school who otherwise would leave discouraged early in the 
course; and 

Whereas, a majority of the children who leave school prematurely do 
so from no economic need, and in fact are idle about half the time between 
their fourteenth and sixteenth years, being the first two years out of school 
and average for the first two years little over two dollars per week in 
earnings, leaving school principally because their interest in practical and 
creative effort is not provided for; and 



194 APPENDIX A 

Whereas, the loss to the schools of fifty per cent of the children in the 
middle of the elementary school courses is an incalculable waste of the 
human resources of the nation, these human resources being estimated by 
Professor Fisher as of the economic value of $250,000,000,000, and five 
times the value of all our other natural resources combined; 

Therefore^ for these and other reasons, the National Association of 
Manufacturers by resolution pledges its earnest support of the following 
principles of educational betterment as essential to society and to the 
spiritual, social, and physical welfare of the youth: — 

1. Continuation schools for that half of the children who leave school 
at fourteen years of age, and mostly in the fifth and sixth grades, these 
continuation schools to be liberally cultural and at the same time to be 
extremely practical and related as directly as possible to the occupations 
in which the several students are engaged. 

2. The development of a modem apprenticeship system wherein by 
contract the respective and equal rights of employer and employee are 
fully recognized, the entire trade is taught, together with such other 
subjects as are essential to good citizenship. 

S. The development of secondary continuation or trade schools, by 
which the more efficient of the great army of boys and girls who will enter 
the continuation schools may progress from these lower continuation 
schools, as in some other countries, to the foremost places in industry and 
commerce. 

4. Compulsory education through adolescence, being until the seven- 
teenth or eighteenth year, attendance being in the all-day school until the 
fourteenth year, and thereafter in either the all-day schools or in the con- 
tinuation schools for not less than one-half day per week, without loss of 
wages for hours in school. 

5. The strengthening of all truancy laws and the development of public 
sentiment in support thereof. 

6. The training of teachers in thoroughgoing methods of industrial 
practice, including as part of such training extended experience in actual 
shop work. 

7. The establishment of independent State and local boards of 
industrial education consisting of one-third each, professional educa- 
tors, employers and employees, thereby insuring, as in the more success- 
ful European countries, the proper correlation of the schools and the 
industries. 

8. The development of the vocational and creative desires of the con- 
crete, or hand-minded children now in the grades, discouraged, anxious 
to quit, and often called backward, only because the education now 
tendered them is abstract and misfit. 

9. The establishment of shop schools and part-time schools whenever 
practicable. 

10. The establishment of departments or centres of vocational guidance 
so that the great majority of the children who now enter industry at four- 
teen with no direction, 85 per cent falling into the "blind alley" occupa- 
tions, may, with the reversal of these figures, as in some other countries. 



APPENDIX A 195 

enter, under advice, intelligently and properly into the progressive and 
improving occupations. 

Resolved, By the National Association of Manufacturers, that it is the 
imperative need of the industrial workers and employers of the country 
that thoroughgoing systems of industrial education be everywhere estab- 
lished, so that our factories may be more constantly and better employed; 
that standards of skill and of output may increasingly be improved, and 
that foreign and domestic markets may be better held and extended. 



APPENDIX B 

LIST OF AUTHORITIES CONSULTED 

Education for Industrial Purposes. Dr. John Seath, Superinten- 
dent of Education for the Province of Ontario. 390 pp. A 
Report made to the Minister of Education. 
Examples of Industrial Education. Frank Mitchell Leavitt. 

Ginn & Co.: Boston. 1912. 
Art and Industry. Education in the Industrial and Fine Arts in 
the United States. Isaac Edward Clarke, A.M. 4 vols. Wash- 
ington, 1885-98. 
Reports of the Commissioner of Education for the United 

States. 
Bulletins of the Bureau of Education, Washington; particularly — 
Education for Efficiency in Railroad Service. 1909. No. 10. 
German Views of American Education with particular refer- 
ence to Industrial Development. 1906. No. 2. 
Current Educational Topics. 1912. No. 11. 
The Elimination of Pupils from School. 1907. No. 4. 
The Apprenticeship System in its Relation to Industrial 

Education. 1908. No. 6. 
The Auxiliary Schools of Germany. 1907. No. 3. 
The Continuation School in the United States. 1907. 
No. L 
The Problem of Vocational Education. David Snedden. 
The Vocational Guidance of Youth. Meyer Bloomfield. 
The People's School. Ruth M. Weeks. 

The above are published in the "Riverside Educational 
Monographs." Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston and 
Chicago. 
Democratic Ideals in Education. R. E. Hughes. Charles & 

Dible: London. 1905. 
Addresses and Proceedings of the National Education Associa- 
tion, 1901-11. 
Industrial Education in Schools for Rural Communities. Re- 
port of Committee of National Education Association. 1905. 
Place of Industries in Public Instruction. Report of Committee 
of National Education Association. 1910. 



APPENDIX B 197 

The Labor Exchange in Relation to Boy and Girl Labor. Fred- 
erick Keeling. P. S. King & Son: London. 
Report of the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and 

Technical Education. 
Reports and Bulletins of Department of Commerce and Labor. 
Washington; especially — 

Report for 1892. Industrial Education. 
Report for 1902. Trade and Technical Education. 
Report for 1910. Industrial Education. 
Revival of Handicraft in America. Bulletin No. 55y Nov- 
ember, 1904. 
Conditions of Entrance to Trades. Bulletin No. 67, Nov- 
ember, 1906. 
Industrial Education and Industrial Conditions in Germany, 
Special Consular Reports. Vol. 33. 1905. 
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 

Vol. 33, January to June, 1909. 
Trades for London Boys and How to Enter Them. 
Trades for London Girls and How to Enter Them. 

Compiled by the London (England) Apprenticeship and 
Skilled Employment Association. 
A Rational Apprenticeship System. R. V. Wright. Reprint 
from the American Engineer and Railroad Journal, June, July, 
September, October, November, 1907. 
Bulletins of the National Association for the Promotion of Indus- 
trial Education; particularly — 

No. 1. Proceedings of the Organization Meetings. 
No. 3. A Symposium on Industrial Education. 
Nos. 5, 6. Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting. 
No. 9. Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting. 
No. 10. Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting. 
No. 13, Part 2. Apprenticeship and Corporation Schools. 
Thirteenth Census of the United States. 1910. 
Report of the Committee on Education of the Syracuse Chamber 

of Commerce. 1908. 
Calendars of Municipal School of Technology. Manchester (Eng- 
land). 
Apprenticeship Bulletin. A monthly publication of the School 

of Printing, North End Union. Boston. 
Education for Efficiency. Eugene Davenport. Heath: Boston. 

1909. 
Industrial Improvement Schools of Wiirtemberg. Albert A. 
Snowden, Teachers College, Columbia University. 



198 APPENDIX B 

The Worker, and the State. Arthur D. Dean. Century Com- 
pany : New York. 1910. 

The New Movement in Education. H. Thiselton Mark. Charles 
& Dible: London (England). 1904. 

Industrial Education; a system of training for men entering upon 
trade and commerce. Harlow Stafford Person. Houghton 
Mifflin Company: Boston. 

Recent Industrial Progress of Germany. Earl Dean Howard. 
Houghton Mifflin Company : Boston. 1907. 

Technical Education in Evening Schools. Clarence H. Creasey. 
Swan, Sonnenscheine & Company: London (England). 

Made in Germany. E. E. Williams. William Heinemann : Lon- 
don (England). 

Continuation Schools in England and Elsewhere. M. E. Sadler. 
University Press: Manchester (England). 1908. 

Industrial Efficiency. Arthur Shadwell. Longmans, Green & Co. 
1909. 

American Machinist. A trade monthly, periodically containing 
valuable articles on various phases of the question. 

Our Children, Our Schools, and Our Industries. Andrew S. 
Draper, New York State Commissioner of Education. 1908. 

Industrial Democracy. Beatrice and Sidney Webb. Longmans, 
Green & Co. : New York. 1902. 

Report of Mosely Educational Commission to the United States, 
October-December, 1903. Cooperative Printing Society : Lon- 
don. 

Industrial Education. Report of the American Federation of 
Labor. 1910. 

Educational Foundations of Trade and Industry. Fabian Ware. 
D. Appleton & Co.: New York. 1901. 

Education and Industry in the United States. H. Thiselton Mark. 

Special Reports, English Board of Education. Vol. 11, Part 2. 

Vocational Education in Europe. Edwin G. Cooley. Report to 
the Commercial Club of Chicago. 1912. 

Manual Training Magazine, Vocational Education. Bi-monthly 
magazines published by Manual Arts Press, Peoria, Illinois. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Ability and initiative, 170. 

Absentees, looking after, 113. 

Adolescent labor, 19. 

Adolescents, compulsory attendance 
of, 95, 96. 

Advertising, 108; examples of post- 
ers used for, 110, 111. 

Advisory industrial committees, 118. 

Advocacy, intemperate, 67. 

Age of entry into industries, 164. 

"America," definition of, 10. 

American and German systems, 
differences between, 185, 186. 

American Federation of Labor, 34, 
79. 

American Machinist, 178. 

Apprentices, not desired by employ- 
ers, 133; boys do not desire to 
become, 135; journeymen do not 
desire to instruct, 135; selection 
of, 140; satisfactory wages to, 
141; adequate instruction of, 142 
progress through the shop of, 143 
Government regulation of, 143 
direction out of working hours of, 
145; private schools for instruc- 
tion of, 147. 

Apprenticeship, revival of, 34, 146; 
decline of, 131; said to be dead, 
127; old system of produced skill, 
128; undesirable features of old, 
130; in small towns, 9; length of, 
136, 142; for the industrial special- 
ist, 139; law in Switzerland, 144; 
law in Wisconsin, 144; Summer, 
160; system in Germany, 182, 
183; boy does not wish to be 
bound to, 136. 

Apprenticeship and Skilled Em- 
ployment Association, 149; man- 
ual of, 152. 



Arguments designed to satisfy labor 
organizations, 61. 

Arithmetic, taught industrially, 49, 
50; Ludlow Textile, 50. 

Art, 23, 24; German criticism of 
instruction in, 24. 

Assembly-room, 44. 

Attendance, compulsory at even- 
ing schools, 95; in primary schools 
of Ontario, 13; in schools of 
United States, 13; in Manchester, 
14; in Germany, 14; difficulty of 
securing, 81; percentage of, in 
evening schools, 94; reasons for 
discontinuance of, 103. 

Authorities consulted, 196. 

Ayres, Dr., 18. 

Baron de Hirsch Trade School, 166. 

Birmingham, 152. 

Boston, 155; Annual Report of 
School Committee of, 160; North 
End Union School of Printing, 
166, 167. 

"Bread and butter" education, 19. 

Buildings, elaborate, 175, 176. 

Burks, Jesse D., 63. 

Bursaries and scholarships, Man- 
chester, 85. 

Butler, Nicholas Murray, 21. 

Cincinnati, O., 87. 

Classification of students, 100, 101. 

Commissions and investigations, 6, 
7. 

Commission, Massachusetts, 29, 61. 

Community work in manual train- 
ing, 70. 

Compulsion, 58. 

Compulsory laws, non-enforcement 
of, 14. 



202 



INDEX 



Cooperation, between small towns, 
122; between all interests con- 
cerned, 86. 

Cooperative plan of industrial edu- 
cation, 87; American Federation 
of Labor on, 88; opposition of 
organized labor to, 87. 

Correspondence schools, 119; study 
department of University of Wis- 
consin, 120, 121 ; course of Inter- 
national Typographical Union, 
121. 

Cost check, Pueblo, California, 
69. 

Course of study, veneration for, 18; 
reorganization of, 45, 46. 

Cultural and vocational subjects, 
19, 21; no vital conflict between, 
40. 

Curricula of German industrial 
schools, 180, 181. 

Davenport, Dean, 52. 

Day and evening school teaching, 

purpose of, 105. 
Dean, Arthur, 12, 126. 
Decision regarding boys* future 

should be made earlier, 165. 
Delinquents, 31, 32. 
Discussions, 4, 5. 
Dodge, James M., 168. 
Draper, Dr. Andrew S., 32, 175. 
Drifting from one occupation to 

another, 31, 32. 

Economic losses through industrial 
incapacity, 169. 

Edinburgh, 152. 

Education, business of, 5; ceases at 
end of elementary school course, 
15; formal aim. versus material aim 
in, 50; main purpose of, 75; busi- 
ness methods applied to, 97; of 
the parent, 163; right kind of, 
170; sound and efficient element- 
ary and secondary, 119. 

Educational, propaganda, 6; sys- 
tems aristocratic, 8; loss during 



holidays, 47; tradition, opposition 
of, 63. 

Eight-hour day, 97. 

Employer and employee, mutual 
duties of, 169. 

Employers, interest of, suspected 
by labor, 164. 

Equipment, minimum, 176; costly 
and elaborate, 175, 176. 

Essay, purpose of, 10, 11. 

Evening schools, 25, 26; craze for 
large numbers in, 92; percentage 
of attendance in, 94; defects of 
instruction in, 94, 95; compulsory 
attendance at, 95; English regu- 
lations for, 103; selection of teach- 
ers for, 104, 105; purpose of teach- 
ing in, 105; as social centres, 112; 
small classes in, 112; failure of, 26. 

Exemption, raising age of, 12, 13. 

Expenditure, in United States, 14; 
in Canada, 14; inadequate returns 
from, 27; on industrial schools, 
88, 89. 91. 

Factories, visits to, 56. 

Farm, leaving the, 30. 

Fees, 109. 

Foreign systems, misinterpretation 
of, 36. 

Formal versus material aim in edu- 
cation, 50. 

Geography, taught industrially, 51. 

Germany, apprenticeship system in, 
182, 183; dissatisfaction with own 
system, 183; speech of Emperor 
of, 184; system a beautiful ma- 
chine, 185; system contrasted 
with American, 185, 186; military 
system of, 186; Times Commis- 
sioners report on, 187; lessons to 
be learned from, 188, 189; two 
classes of industrial schools in, 
179. 

Government intervention in labor 
concerns, 145. 

Grading, faulty, 18. 



INDEX 



203 



Guidance in selection of subjects, 

100. 
Guilds, old trade, 128; functions of 

Austrian, 129. 

Hale, Chief Justice, 4. 

Hand work, more required, 55. 

"Handwerkerschule," 182. 

High schools, do not meet the needs 
of workers, 76. 

History, taught industrially, 51. 

Hoar, Pres. Leonard, 4. 

Household science, 71; measures 
necessary to vitalize, 71, 72; com- 
plete apartment or flat in teach- 
ing, 72. 

Housewifery, 71. 

Imitation of foreign systems, 177. 

Industrial education, antiquity of 
the subject, 3; hazy notions of, 5; 
definition of, 10; has its roots in 
primary education, 21; has grown 
out of manual training, 22; aims 
and objects of, 37, 38; coopera- 
tive plan of, 87; contributions of 
Federal Governments to, 90. 

Industrial elasticity, 171. 

Industrial schools, general and 
special, 77; not a refuge for the 
mentally weak, 80, 81; functions 
of, 92; textbooks for, 114; expen- 
ditures on, 88, 89, 91. 

Industrial training gives increased 
/^ earning power, 116. 

Industrial specialist, 135, 136. 

Industry, boys' dislike of, 29, 30; 
prejudice against, 10, 163; popu- 
lar conception of, 10. 

Inexperience of teachers, 16. 

Initiative and ability, 170. 

Instruction, visual, 57; in industrial 
opportunities, 56. 

Investigations and Commissions, 6, 
7. 

Labor, boy and girl, 31; Exchange 
Act (England), 151; the asset of 



the worker, 163; subdivision of, 
9, 132; opposed to trade schools, 
88; American Federation of, 34. 

Lawrence Scientific School, 4. 

Leaving school, early age of, 29. 

Leeds, 116. 

Lessons, printed or typewritten, 113. 

Libraries, 55. 

Limited time available, 46, 47. 

Literature, 4. 

Locke, 4. 

London, 152. 

Machine labor for hand labor, sub- 
stitution of, 131. 

Maintenance allowances, 34. 

Manchester, 117; attendance in, 14; 
Education Committee of, 72; 
scholarships and bursaries in, 85. 

Manhattan Trade School for girls, 
33. 

Manual training, 22, 59; high 
schools, 59; its failure to give voca- 
tional training, 60; in elementary 
schools, 60; not taken seriously by 
the people, 60; here to stay, 61; 
the basis of industrial education, 
62; methods foreign to the shop, 
63, 64; development of, 64; re- 
stricted to work in wood, 65; 
limited ability of teachers of, 65; 
ideal teacher of, 66; Ontario regu- 
lations for training teachers of, 
66; intemperate advocacy of, 67; 
ordinary teacher's lack of inter- 
est in, 67; community work in, 
70; changed attitude of teachers 
toward, 71; measures necessary 
to vitalize, 74; use of time and 
material in, 68. 

Manufacturers, National Associa- 
tion of, 193. 

Manufacturers' attitude, employ- 
ees' idea of, 99. 

Maxwell, Superintendent of New 
York schools, 62. 

Mechanics, universities, 3; recruited 
from elementary schools, 12. 



^04 



INDEX 



Methods, more practical required, 

73. 
Meyer, EmestC, 188. 
Mistakes made in the promotion of 

industrial education, 175. 
Montrose, 114. 
Museums, trade, 123, 124, 125. 

New York, 155; Manhattan Trade 
School, 33; Superintendent Max- 
well, 62. 

Newton Independent Industrial 
School, 80, 86. 

North End School of Printing, 
Boston, 166, 167. 

Numbers, craze for large, in evening 
schools, 92. 

Occupations, indiscriminate choice 
of. 35. 

Opportunities in industry, instruc- 
tion in, 56. 

Organization, in the one industry 
town, 114; in towns with varied 
industries, 114; in Montrose, 115; 
in the large city, 116; in Leeds, 
116; in Manchester, 117. 

Parents, attitude of, 27, 28; obso- 
lete authority of, 29; financial 
condition of, 33; education of, 
163. 

Pitt, William, 4. 

Population, distribution of, 9; 
growth of, 131. 

Problem, industrial, various aspects 
of the, 12. 

Product, value of the finished, 43; 
disposal of the, 83, 84. 

Propaganda, educational, 6. 

Prosperity, too much, 165. 

Public, attitude of, 5, 6. 

Reading, taught industrially, 47, 

48. 
Reforms, necessary, 45. 
" Repeaters," cause of, 16. 
Roberts, W. E., 55, 



Rochdale Education Committee, 98. 
Rochester factory or shop school, 
77, 84, 86. 

Salaries, 57. 

Scholarships and maintenanceallow- 
ances, of London County Council, 
82; in Manchester, 85. 

Schools, new type of, 68; length of 
course in, 32, 33; regarded as a 
business concern, 43; use of the 
whole building, 44, 45; Spring 
Valley, Polk County, Neb., 52, 
53, 54; length of session in, 109, 
112; traveling, 122, 123; winter, 
for unemployed workmen, 123; 
length of day in, 78; leaving be- 
fore completion of course, 79; 
conditions in, different from those 
of the shop, 68. 

Science, industrial, 50. 

Seath, Dr. John, 13. 

Sharing advantages between em- 
ployer and employee, 99. 

Shoe industry, inquiry into, 156. 

Silence maintained on certain ques- 
tions, 8. 

Skilled labor essential, 171, 172. 

Sorting children thought to be un- 
democratic, 76. 

Specialist, professional versus indus- 
trial, 135, 136. 

Statistics, vital, 57. 

Students, classification of, 100, 101. 

Subjects, method of presentation of, 
101, 102. 

Switzerland, apprenticeship law in, 
144. 

Teachers, inexperience of, 16; in- 
eflScient, dismissal of, 17; prepon- 
derance of female, 17; training, 
57, 106; method of selecting in 
Munich, 107, 108. 

"Technical," definition of, 10. 

Textbooks, 114. 

Textile Workers' Union of America, 
28. 



INDEX 



205 



Time and material in the manual 
training room, 68. 

Trade schools, inspection of, 56; 
American and German concep- 
tion of, 178, 179. 

Trade, should be apprentice's own 
choice, 141; stealing a, 137, 
138. 

Trades, inquiry into conditions of, 
153, 154; in which apprenticeship 
cannot be established, 138. 

Training to be given by the shop, 
34. 

Union membership does not imply 
expert craftsmanship, 128. 

United Typothetse of America, 
147. 

Unskilled worker, the, 89. 



Vocational and cultural subjects, 19, 
21. 

Vocational Bureau bulletins, 159. 

Vocational guidance, 149; national 
conference on, 154; present con- 
dition of movement for, 161. 

Waste, elimination of, 7. 
Wasted years, the, 19. 
Williamson School of Trades, 84. 
Wisconsin, apprenticeship law in 

144. 
Worcester, Marquis of, 3. 
Work out of school, 52. 
Workmen, disinclined to attend 

classes, 100. 
Writing taught industrially, 48. 

Yarranton, Andrew, 3. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



JUL 2 1913 



